If you've got a word that you've spelled incorrectly by transposing two characters (such as wierd instead of weird or godo instead of good), you may want a way to transpose the two offending letters in order to correct the word. There is no built-in command in Word to do this, but you can create your own command, using a macro, to easily accomplish the task.
One approach is to create a macro that works when you place the insertion point in front of the offending pair of letters. This means you would place the insertion point in front of the "ie" in wierd or in front of the "do" in godo. The macro then deletes whatever the next character is, moves one character to the right, and then inserts the character just deleted.
Sub TransposeChar1() With Selection .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend .Cut .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1 .Paste End With End Sub
Putting the insertion point before the two characters seems a bit odd to some users, so you can also devise a macro that will work if you start between the two characters you want to transpose.
Sub TransposeChar2() With Selection .MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend .Cut .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, count:=1 .Paste .MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, count:=1 End With End Sub
This macro, upon completion, leaves the insertion point where you started—between the two characters that were transposed.
You can make the macros more powerful (whichever approach you choose) by assigning your selection to a shortcut key, such as Ctrl+T.
Of course, another way to solve the transposition problem is to use AutoCorrect. If you find that you frequently transpose two characters in a word, then you can create an AutoCorrect entry that will do the switch for your as you are typing. How you set up AutoCorrect entries has been covered in other issues of WordTips.
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9230) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Transposing Letters.
Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!
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2014-10-15 10:34:05
Richard
Nice one, Ferd!
2014-10-12 14:16:09
Al Lowe
Using this as a guide, I created another macro to transpose two words. Since I usually see my mistakes when the cursor is after the error, I start my macros from AFTER the two characters or two words.
I assigned Alt-Backspace to the character macro and Shift-Alt-Backspace to the word macro.
Quite useful!
2014-10-12 00:03:12
Fred
Well that sure helps me I tranpose letters all hte time
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