In several previous versions of Word, Microsoft had an auto-text feature that allows users to grab a piece of text and then use it over and over again in other parts of their documents or even in other documents.
Microsoft has added to this feature what it calls swift parts, which are essentially auto-text but offer users a little more flexibility.
To see how AutoText works with quick parts, enter text in a test document; this example will use the address:
Then select the text and click the Insert tab on the main ribbon, then click the Quick Parts icon:
You should get this dropdown menu:
Select “Save Selection to Quick Parts Galleryâ€, you will see a pop-up window that looks like this:
In most cases, you can use the default settings, although you can change them if you like to suit your purpose, then click OK.
Note. The name of the swift part that is created by default matches the first line of text.
To see the results of your efforts, navigate to another part of the document, then click the Quick Parts icon again. You should see the recorded text in a small window:
If you click a Quick Sections window with text in it, the text is inserted into the document at its current position.
However, there is an even faster way to insert quick-section text into a document; move to an empty space and start typing the same text that you saved as quick chunk text, you should get a small pop-up window showing that Word recognizes that you are trying to enter quick chunk text.
In this case, all you have to do is hit the Enter key and Word will fill in the rest of the text in quick parts for you.
Note. You can also enter only the first couple of characters of the quick chunk text, and then press F3 and Word will insert the quick chunk text you think you want.
This is the quick part of the quick parts: by clicking just one icon, you will immediately see the recorded text and you can insert it with another click, or insert it automatically when it recognizes what you are trying to type.
Word still has the old AutoText feature; to use it follow the same path as for the quick parts, only when you get the Create new building block popup, instead of using the default quick parts in the Gallery section, select Autotext instead :
Then, to use it, click the quick parts icon again, and then instead of selecting one of the text boxes for the quick parts, click instead where it says Autotext, you should see a dropdown menu that looks something like this:
Clicking where you see the saved text will cause the saved text to be inserted into your document, just like the quick parts.
The other two insertion options from the Quick Parts menu are Document Property and Field:
The document property allows you to insert text with a predefined title into the document; to see how it works, click on it, then select one of the available titles from the pop-up menu.
In this example, we will select Company. Once selected, we paste this into our document:
We are waiting for us to enter the name of our company, as soon as we do it, it will look like this:
Then clicking anywhere else in our document makes it look like regular text. But the next time we need to enter our company name, we can instead click the Quick Parts icon, select Document Properties and then Company from the drop-down menu and the company name will be inserted into the document.
Alternatively, Field is used to insert predefined Word elements into your document; for example, if you want the current time to be inserted into your document, you must click Quick Parts, then select Field then select Time in the category window.
The current time will be inserted into your document.
Finally, to delete the quick chunk text entries, click the quick chunk icon, then right-click in the window containing the text you want to delete, then click where it says “Organize and Delete”:
Then click the Delete button at the bottom of the Arrange and Remove Popup menu.
Quick Parts and AutoText are most useful when you find yourself typing over and over, especially if it’s tedious, such as long numbers or difficult to pronounce names or places.
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