AutoText Limit?

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Is there a limit on either how many autotext entries a template can have or the number of kbytes allowed (Word 97)? Word keeps shutting down when I try to copy or print Autotext entries in a template.

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There is some number like 32,000 but in practical terms that’s a hypothetical limit. The only effective limit is the effect of the autotexts on the size of the template file.

How large is the template file? If Word keeps shutting down it’s probably unrelated to the number of autotexts. What methods are you using to copy or print the autotexts?

Here’s a method I use (adapted from original by some forgotten benefactor):

Sub AutoTextList()

Dim objTemplate As Template
Dim objATEntry As AutoTextEntry

Set objTemplate = ActiveDocument.AttachedTemplate

For Each objATEntry In objTemplate.AutoTextEntries
    With Selection
        .Font.Bold = True
        .Font.ColorIndex = wdRed
        .TypeText vbCr & objATEntry.Name & ":" & vbCr & vbCr
        objATEntry.Insert Where:=.Range, RichText:=True
    End With
Next objATEntry

End Sub

Gary

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Hi Gary:
Great macro. Is there a way that it could list the name of the autotext entry in bold italic & then list the entry the with it’s true formatting?

I found that it lists everything–name & entry–in bold. (I know how to get the “red” out (somebody’s going to say Visine.

Thanks in advance,

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Hi Phil,

Thanks. I think I based it on something originally posted on the Daily Word Tips list (plug for Alan!) but I failed to note the original author.

When I run it, in either W97 or 2K, it makes the name of the autotext entry red and bold, and the autotext entries themselves do come in with their true formatting. So I’m stumped why you’re not getting the entry with its correct formatting.

As to getting the name bold italic, just add:

.Font.Italic = True

Regards,
Gary

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Hi Gary:
I ran the macro again. Only some of the AutoText entries come out red & bold–the built-in ones. i.e. the ones that say CERTIFIED MAIL, Respectfully, Yours truly, etc.

All the ones that I created come out fine. I know that the entries I created are stored with their formatting. I wonder if the built-in ones are not. That would make sense, I suppose, so that the closings would be in the same font & color as the body of a letter.

On Word 2000, do your built-in AutoText entries come out red & bold?

Thanks again.

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Hi again,

That is really interesting. You’ve run the macro on a document based on Normal.dot, which I hadn’t tried before – I’d only run it on documents based on custom templates, in which all the autotext entries are custom too.

I think you’ve got it exactly right, that the built-in autotext entries don’t come in with their own formatting, while custom ones do.

You know there’s a perennial problem when recording a macro of inserting an autotext: when you later run the macro, the autotext comes in, but without its formatting. And the reason turns out to be that the macro recorder leaves out the RichText:=True argument.

I’m not sure how, but it seems like the behaviors described in the two previous paragraphs are related.

An interesting question: how does Word keep track of which autotexts in Normal.dot are built-in, and which are custom? There doesn’t appear to be any “BuiltIn” property pertaining to the AutoTextEntry object (in VBA, anyway).
This might be one of those pieces of the Word object model that doesn’t have an equivalent in VBA.

Gary

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Hi Gary:
I’m guessing that Word keeps track internally, the way they keep track of which built-in templates go on which tabs in File/New.

I remember in Word 6 & 7, you had a choice of inserting a formatted or unformatted autotext entry. I don’t see that option in Word 2000.

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I wrote an AutoText/Macro combination for insertion of a red herring* (in 2K, pre SR1)… There was no problem with loss of formatting.

I believe it’s one of those situations where we’re making it rougher than need be… if your AT entry has either a character style applied, direct formatting or you’ve carried the paragraph marks and thus paragraph formatting… it’s fine. Word’s standards are (all?) one-liners, without paragraph marks and resulting formatting.

*for those who don’t know (but I know Gary knows), a red herring is what’s seen on the cover of offering documents, it’s landscaped in the left margin and printed in red.

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Yes, red herrings have been one of my staple foods over the years (just don’t try to eat the staples)

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Karen,

Post an attachment screen shot of a red herring. I’d never seen on (that I know of) and I’d like to. If you please…

BYW, this thread was not about autotext formatting correctly. I do have a post out there about bookmark text inserting with the paragraph formatting of the target paragraph. Oh well…

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I saw that post, but am such a VB newbie I didn’t dare try to respond… I know that if merging, you can select the */ mergeformat, and it will retain the formatting — but as to the insert file through VBA… CLUELESS!!!!

As to the screenshot — uh, how do I upload? I selected Preview/Attach File… but don’t see any place to attach.

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Karen,

1. Get the “red herring” page open.
2. Press Shift-PrtSch
3. Open blank doc
4. Right-click, Paste
5. Save this doc.

After clicking Preview/Attach a File, browse to this file and post it

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Hi Kevin:
I know what Alt+PrntScreen does? What does Shift+PrntScreen do?

Thanks in advance.

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Phil,

Absolutely nothing.

I stand corrected. Hey, Karen it’s Alt-PrtScn!

Thanks Phil.

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Hey Phil,

Guess what? I was reading some “curious volume of forgotten (computer) lore” and discovered an interesting note:

The Shift-Print Screen key does exactly what the Alt-Print Screen key does for computers with the old 84-key keyboard.

I must have subconsciously emitted that mention from the bowels of my vast (ha!) mental archive!

The volume? Brian Livinston’s Windows 95 Secrets.

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Hi Kevin:

Now that was one great book (not to undermine any of Woody’s books, but that was pre-Woody for me).

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Lovely userform. Who’s PERB?

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PERB is the acronym for the State agency (CA) I work for. That userform is homebase for the document generator/manager app I’ve been working on lately. Thanks for the compliment. If software can be anthropomorphic, it’s my baby.

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Good stuff.
By the way, baby could use a pair of accelerators on her command buttons, no?

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Where? The Ok and Cancel buttons? MS seems to moving away from that if you code the [Enter] key to default Ok and the Esc key to cancel. If not those which pair do you mean?

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You are so right.
I have so internalized my own company’s standards, I make the mistake of applying them to the rest of the world.

I withdraw my tweak; baby is just fine without it.

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Thanks! I already had the screenshot in a doc, but missed the “Browse” item at bottom of posting screen. That’s where I got lost.

The doc I took a pic of was created with Word’s excellent Easter Egg* and then using the macro to insert the RH from autotext. I can’t seem to get users to type a 5 letter phrase and press F3–so I gave them a button.

*If you key ‘=rand()’ (w/o the quotes) and enter, you will get 3 paragraphs, 3 sentences each of ‘The quick brown…’ if you insert 5,10 between the parens, you get 5 paras, 10 sent. each. What was MS thinking? A truly useful Easter Egg?

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Ok, I see. That vertical box with perpendicular text is a red herring. Man, I am really out of the loop. What exactly is the purpose of that?

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The box is simply a visible gridline — it doesn’t print. The Red Herrings are used for Public Offering Statements (Bond issues) and Private Placement Memoranda (Corporate Securities). Previously they had to be done at the printers. Although we could create with WordArt, it wouldn’t justify; and the documents are already very complex in nature, so the bloat was horrid.

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Thanks for the education. The print is too small to read in your attachment, but what does the text in the box reveal — if it does not print, it must be some sort of eye catching device? Oh, never mind. It’s greek to me anyway you cut it.

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Oops! Didn’t mean to mislead. The text does print. It’s the gridline that doesn’t.

It’s a disclaimer:

‘This Preliminary Official Statement and any information contained herein are subject to completion and amendment. Under no circumstances may this Preliminary Official Statement constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the _____ Bonds in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.’

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Technically, the issuer may not sell securities on the basis of the preliminary offer document, since it does not contain complete financial information regarding the offer.
So the disclaimer protects the issuer from any claim of having done otherwise.
When the preliminary offer document becomes a “final” offering document, all of the pertinent financial information has been filled in (and all the square brackets and/or “blobs” have been removed) and the red herring is removed from the cover.
P.S. And the issue is registered with the appropriate controlling authority, such as the SEC.

(I’m not a lawyer, but I work for them)

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>(I’m not a lawyer, but I work for them

Same here.

Thanks for the “red herring” course, Gary.

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Gary,

Just getting back to this problem…Thanks for this nice little routine. Here’s the latest:

I was using the Organizer to do the copying (indending to write something latter but not needing to now that I have your post). What I discovered was two of three autotext entries with footnotes were causing the problem. As soon as I tried to delete or copy them, Word shutdown — very strange. So, I copied all others (about 100) to another template and just deleted the old template. I have no idea why these autotext pieces were corrupt, but they were. The only clue I have is in the autotext preview window these two demons did not show the footnote reference number — just a small square box. The other autotext with a footnote displayed the reference (1). Beats me.

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Autotext entries containing footnotes – sounds like a scary concept to begin with.

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The nerve of these managers and users to expect such a thing! Don’t they know computers can’t do everything?

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Try this Article at MS: http://Q168804 – WD97: Operating Parameter Limitations and Specifications[/url]

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FYI: I’ll find it, but that’s not a URL… Thanks though.

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Oops! It’s Friday, TG. You’re right it’s NOT an url. But if you go to the MS KB and Search for that article it’ll pop up.

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Otherwise you can just click on this

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