First, you can, and I suspect should, save them to a different global
template. See http://addbalance.com/word/movetotemplate.htm for step-by-step
instructions on moving / sharing / copying / backing-up customizations
including AutoText, AutoCorrect, keyboard assignments, toolbars, macros,
etc.

However, it looks like your primary problem is that normal.dot isn't being
saved between sessions.

From the FAQ:

28. I can't save my customizations - AutoText, menus, etc.
Can't save normal.dot...
If you have Adobe Acrobat 7 installed see the last section of
http://www.gmayor.com/lose_that_adob...at_toolbar.htm.
Otherwise, hold down the Shift key when selecting the File
menu and select Save All.
See also http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/331259.html.

Hope this helps,
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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"imillicit" wrote in message
...
Word 2003: I wish to define useful autotext entries that remain available
between sessions. Some have already been defined and they are ok. However,
I
cannot define new ones and be confident they will be there after I restart
word.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way of explicitly defining which template
these will be stored in, or whether they can be stored at all. I would
expect
to find these options within the "Organizer" which can be accessed via the
"Templates and Add-Ins" dialog. However, the Autotext tab here only offers
the chance to move items already defined within a template, not those
within
the current document.

Would I experience better results if I explicitly open the Normal.dot and
force the autotext entries into this template?