Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Backing Up Your AutoText Entries.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 23, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016
AutoText allows you assign text or graphics to a keyword and then replace the keyword with the text or graphics whenever you want. If you have been a long-time user of Word, chances are pretty good that you have developed quite a few AutoText entries for things like signature blocks in letters, boilerplate text, and long, hard-to-spell words.
Assuming you have quite a few AutoText entries, you may be wondering how you can back up those entries so they can be moved to a different computer. It is quite easy to do, really. All you need to do is back up your template files. This is where the AutoText entries are stored.
It is a good bet that most of your commonly used AutoText entries are in the Normal template file, so backing up this file will help you retain the majority of your information. Many Word users, however, also store AutoText entries in other template files. For instance, you may only have your AutoText entry for your signature block stored in the template you use to create letters.
To be safe, you can use the search capabilities of Windows to locate all the files on your system that use either the DOTX or DOTM extension. These can then be quickly copied to some backup medium, such as a flash drive, a CD-ROM, or to another disk location.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9411) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Backing Up Your AutoText Entries.
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2017-02-22 17:16:39
Carl
In his book on templates, he says that in later versions of Word, the autotext entries are stored in the Building Bolcks files, found at:
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\15
and
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\16
2017-02-19 05:17:57
Melpomwnw
Will not work between Word 2011 and Word 2016.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here:
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