Abbreviations in Word is a necessary skill for anyone working with word processing. So have you written how to abbreviate in Word to save time and effort? The following article will help you write how to abbreviate in Word to be suitable for the content and formatting of the text.
1. Benefits of setting up abbreviations in Word
While composing a text, you can define words, phrases with symbols, concise characters. When you type those symbols and press the space bar, the full content will appear. This is the utility of setting up abbreviations in Word. For example, you can abbreviate “ct” for the phrase “forward”; “VN” abbreviates the word “Vietnam”. Some benefits you can refer to when setting up the shortcut keys in Word are:
- Save time and effort when composing text, you will not have to retype many times the usual words and phrases.
- Help you detect and correct spelling errors, typographical errors encountered while typing text.
- Improve professionalism and aesthetics for the text, avoid confusion or mistakes while composing.
2. Steps to help you set up abbreviations in Word
To set up shortcuts in Word, you need to use the AutoCorrect Options feature in the Word application. You can refer to the detailed instructions in the section below.
Step 1: You open the Word application on your device.
Step 2: You press select “File” on the toolbar.
Step 3: You press select “Options” in the lower-left corner of the Word interface.
Step 4: In the new dialog box, you select the command “Proofing”, press “AutoCorrect Options”.
Step 4: In “AutoCorrect: English (United States)”, you select the “AutoCorrect” tab. Scroll down, you will see the “Replace text as you type” command. Here, you enter the abbreviation in the left box, and the full word in the right box. Then you press “Add” and “Ok” to complete setting up abbreviations in Word.
So you have finished setting up abbreviations in Word. From now on, when you want to write a word, you just need to write the abbreviation that has been set is enough. You can flexibly set up many commonly used abbreviations according to your habits to set up in Word, convenient when composing.
3. How to delete abbreviations in Word
In addition, when you do not use the installed abbreviations, you can also completely delete them. The steps to delete abbreviations in Word are similar to those for adding abbreviations.
After opening the “AutoCorrect: English (United States)” dialog box you select the “AutoCorrect” tab. Scroll down, you will see a table listing the abbreviations you added. Here, you scroll down and find the abbreviated word you want to delete. Then you press “Delete” and “Ok” to complete setting up abbreviations in Word.
4. How to set up abbreviations for special characters in Word
Because of the nature of your work, your text editing often requires the use of special characters. However, it takes a lot of time to be able to type them in normal text, are you looking for a way to optimize the work but haven’t found it yet? Save and perform the following steps.
4.1. Set up available special characters in AutoCorrect
Similar operations to the above guidelines to open the “AutoCorrect” dialog box you select the “Math Autocorrect” tab. Here, you will see a table of abbreviations that have been set up by default. You select the character you want to use in that table then press “Insert”.
Step 4.2. Set up abbreviations for special characters
Step 1: On the toolbar, select “Insert”, then select “Symbol” to open the special character table.
Step 2: When the special character table appears, you select the character you want to set up in Word, then press “Insert”.
Step 3: Highlight and perform Copy on the selected character.
Step 4: Open the “AutoCorrect” dialog box with the same steps, you select the “Math Autocorrect” tab. Execute the “Paste” command for the copied character into the right column box, and the abbreviation you want to enter into the left column box. Then you press “Replace” to set up abbreviations in Word with the previous special character.
Step 5: Click “Ok” at the end of the dialog box.
You can perform the same operations with any character according to your preference to set up abbreviations in Word. In particular, with special characters, setting up abbreviations will help you type text faster with commonly used characters.
5. Set up abbreviations with Unikey
In addition to setting up abbreviations in Word in the software itself, you can also set up abbreviations in Word with Unikey. To be able to do this, please download Unikey and use it to support typing Vietnamese on your computer.
Currently, Unikey is a popular Vietnamese typing support software on the Windows operating system, applicable to most other applications on your computer. You can search for Unikey software on the Internet and easily install it at home. After the installation is complete, you open Unikey to perform the steps to set up abbreviations in Word!
Step 1: At the main interface of Unikey, you select the “Extensions” section.
Step 2: Select “Abbreviation table”.
Step 3: In the Macro Definition dialog box, enter the abbreviation and the replacement word. Then you select “Add”, press “Save”. You repeat this operation continuously with the words you want to set up abbreviations in Word.
Step 4: After completing, you will return to the initial “Abbreviation Options” selection, at this time you check both boxes “Enable abbreviations” and “Allow all when typing Vietnamese”.
Step 5: You select “Close” in the main interface of Unikey is to complete the process of setting up abbreviations in Word with Unikey and can start using them.
6. Notes when setting up abbreviations in Word
The abbreviation feature in Word is very convenient to help you more conveniently in composing, but to be able to make the most of this feature, please note the following issues:
You should choose abbreviations that are unlikely to appear in the content of the text, the more special characters, the better. For example, you can choose “CH” for the phrase “Socialist Republic of Vietnam” but should not choose “pt” for the word “development” because “pt” can be a common word.
You need to distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters when setting up abbreviations. For example, you set the abbreviation to be “tr”, if you type “Tr” it will not be replaced. Different letters of the alphabet, lowercase letters need to be set separately.
You need to check the existing abbreviation settings in Word to avoid conflicts and confusion during use. If it is duplicated, you need to delete the old setting and reset it. For example, in Word, there is already a setting “tm” as “™”.
You can back up your abbreviations to restore them when switching devices. You can back up by exporting the Normal.dotm file in the Templates folder of Word.
So, the above article has guided you on how to abbreviate in Word with various different methods. I hope the article can help you have more knowledge about text editing tools to make the working process more time-saving and professional. Don’t forget the notes mentioned in the article to avoid confusion and mistakes when setting up abbreviations in Word!
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