Frankly I don't recall that method ever having worked, and I am not
surprised that the dialog box has a character limit - I am surprised it's as
big as 255 characters. I would have thought 30 would have been nearer the
mark

Type the text in the document - pages of it if you like - select the text
then ALT+F3. Type your autotext name in the box.

If you make a lot of use of autotext, then you might like to investigate
GhostTyper XML, which will work in all applications including Word - you can
even have two entries with the same name without conflict, or use an
assortment of data files for different tasks. I use it for storing web links
for reproduction here


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org





Terry wrote:
Margaret, thanks for replying.

We are entering the full autotext entry in the 'enter autotext
entries here' part of the dialogue. I think it is at this point it
is going wrong - but has definitely worked previously. We then give
this text a code (4 or 5 letters) using Templates & Add
ins/organiser. This is what worked 2 years ago (I think) on the same
machine & software (Win 98, Office 2000) - no changes as far as I'm
aware (may have downloaded an update). This original template still
works using the original autotext; however, trying to add a new
autotext entry does not.

Terry


"Margaret Aldis" wrote
in message ...
How are you "entering" the text? To add an AutoText, you select the
content first (in the document), open AutoText dialog with Insert
AutoText AutoText ..., then type in the name (your shorthand code)
for the AutoText. The content can be very long and complex (I don't
know limits and have never tripped over any) but the name you type
is limited to 255 chars I think.

As an aside, make sure also that you use the AutoText dialog and not
the short "New" dialog as you will need to select the template to
store the AutoText in.

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org



"Terry" wrote in message
...
Certainly not a new user but don't know where to post this one
(Please tell
me where may be better).

Some time ago we prepared a Word 2000 template using a table and
Autotext. Sentences (from a different document) were added to
autotext (some were 700+
characters) and each given a code. Typing the code successfully
inserted the text into the table (of the template and 'new'
documents). This template still works OK on Word 97, 2000, XP.

We are now trying to set up new templates on the same basis.
However, we cannot enter more than 255 characters (on any version)
into autotext. What
has gone wrong/are we doing differently. Please help before I lose
all my hair!!!

If the original was a 'quirk', any other ideas for automatically
entering text using a code?

Many thanks

Terry