So, I'm doing some work on my laptop the other night and E looks over my shoulder and says 'Hey, I've got a question for you. I was working in Word today and I must have typed the same word over and over 40 times. Isn't there a way to create a shortcut key or something where I can type in 2 or 3 letters and have the word fill in automatically?'. So I say 'Well, actually, yes, there is'.

Here's what you do. As with almost everything regarding your computer, there's more than one way to do this, including creating macros and embedding some VBA code. Here's what I think is the easiest way.

The following examples were created using Microsoft Office 2003 running on XP. If you've got a different version your menu locations and dialog boxes may be different than what's shown here.

We're using Microsoft Word to show this feature, but AutoCorrect is available in all Office programs

Go to the main menu in Word, click on Tools -> AutoCorrect Options:

That will bring up a dialog box that looks like this:

Make sure the AutoCorrect tab is selected as shown. Now, simply type in the letters you would like to use as the 'key' in the Replace: box, and the text that you would like that key to insert into the With: box, like so:

Now click on the Add button, and click OK. All you have to do now is type those 'key' letters into your document:

and hit the space bar or the tab key or the return key and Word will automatically replace them with the substitute words:

Piece of cake, eh?

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