Word Replacement Option

[mattyra]

Hi All,



I have been looking for a plugin (it may already exist in word but I can't find it) to have an option to input words depending on what is typed.

For example if I type red back spider I would like the option to have the scientific name put in brackets after it which would then show "Red Back Spider (Latrodectus hasselti). Some reports that are created have a lot of these references and it can take hours of work to determine the names as well as make sure they are spelt correctly.

Any suggestions would be handy.

Thanks,

[Guessed]

Do you need this for existing text or do you want to just deal with future text entry?

If this is for future edits, you could just add these as autocorrect entries.

If you want to revisit existing content then you will need a macro to process a list of entries based on a table stored somewhere. In that case, you will need to provide us a sample table.

[mattyra]

Thanks Guessed.

I have had a look at the auto-correct feature and that is how we used to do it before the Hard Drive crashed and we lost the auto-correct files.

I was thinking that since I need to rebuild the list anyway why not make it a little more convenient. Issue I had with the auto-correct is that depending on the report that is being written will depend on what I will use so was hoping to have multiple options words.

Thanks,

[Guessed]

So what is your ideal use case scenario?

Does the user type "Red Back Spider" and then:
- press a keyboard shortcut to insert the relevant scientific name?
- press space to automatically insert the relevant scientific name in brackets?

How does the action depend on the report type?

[mattyra]

Thanks again for your reply.

Ideally it would detect that you enter the term "Red Back Spider" and it would automatically detect that other words exist, which would then give you the options to choose them. These would either be related to scientific names or legislation (generally things you can't remember off the top of your head but does exist.

The idea is if you want to use one you can select it and if you don't want to use any you can keep on typing.

Thanks again.

[Guessed]

OK, I don't think you will find any good solutions for that workflow. You would need to be running an application event watcher that tests the preceding words every time you press any key. This would chew up enormous resources and is not worthwhile.

That said, the spell checker works with a very similar workflow to show you the little red squiggly underlines on words it has tested against a dictionary so you can right-click to make your corrected selection. If Microsoft's developers can do it then perhaps someone else can too.

[mattyra]

Thanks Guessed.

Not exactly the answer I was hoping but answered the question extremely well.

Might have to just stick with the auto-complete for now.

Thanks again

[macropod]

Although it couldn't be done automatically, you could create a two-column Excel workbook with the first column holding the terms and the second holding the extended definitions. That workbook could then be incorporated into a macro that uses an interactive Find/Replace process to update the document. For an example of such an approach, see: https://www.msofficeforums.com/word-...html#post31849