Q. When I type “sept” in Microsoft Word a banner pops up suggesting “September.” I believe this feature is called “auto complete.” I would like to add personal words to this feature in Word 2007 but I have been unable to find how to do it. Can you help?

NOCCC: There have been several names for this type of feature – auto-complete, auto-fill, auto-correct, auto-text, to name a few.

Auto-correct started off as a quick way to automatically correct commonly misspelled or miss-typed words. An example, “the” is corrected to “the.” A clever person quickly figured out that they could customize the misspelled words dictionary by adding a whole string of words to replace a few letters.

For instance, when typed into a document, ROI can automatically be replaced with Return On Investment. To add to this dictionary, just follow these steps:

1. In the menu bar of Word, click “Tools” and “AutoCorrect Options.”

2. A window pops up with various tabs to configure this feature (AutoFormat, AutoFormat as you type, etc.)

3. Select the “AutoCorrect” tab and near the middle, it offers a way to add your own automations.

4. In the area that says, “Replace” and then “With,” just type in the appropriate text. For example, if I put “OCR” in the “Replace” space, and “The Orange County Register” in the “With” space, I’ll never have to type out this newspaper’s name again because Word will take care of that.

Microsoft Word has offered a version of this feature for a long time. Some items, such as dates, are treated as a special case and auto-completes them. In Word 2007, the auto-text feature works with a letter template. When you create the letter template, a salutation field, for instance, is designated. When the cursor reaches that spot, a window pops up containing all the possible salutations you could use. Clicking on one inserts it into the letter.

In Microsoft’s Pocket PC software for digital organizers, it attempts to guess EVERY word you are entering and refines the guess as you enter more letters. On the tiny screen, it works well. If you don’t have this feature and want it for your laptop or desktop computer, Aroona Software sells AutoComplete 5.0 that claims to do the same thing. A free 30-day trial is available at aroonasoft.com/Autocomplete

But most people seem to feel that having every word second guessed by the program is so distracting that it actually slows them down.

Word 2007 abandoned the traditional drop-down menus that previous users of Word are accustomed to in favor of the ribbons at the top of the screen. Included in this new format are the “building blocks,” a fun and useful concept introduced in Word 2007. The ribbons were intended to make life easier for Word users. At least a few people disagree with the result.

One thing is true: Microsoft has some excellent online tutorials and help pages.

Go to: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/FX100649251033.aspx and enter “quick parts” or “building blocks” in the search bar for information related to this question. Enter your own query for other topics. Be sure to tryout a tutorial.

This column was written by Jim Sanders, vice president of the NOCCC.

Have your own quandary? E-mail thegadgetress@ocregister.com and put “Help ME!” in the subject line. Please include your computer’s operating system and amount of memory.

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