Meaningless Text

If you are looking for a quick way to put meaningless tripe in your document, then Word is only too happy to oblige. Why would you need meaningless tripe? Perhaps to do some testing or to fill some space. Regardless, Word provides a quick way to do this. Try the following:

1. Position the cursor at the beginning of a paragraph.
2. Type =rand() and press Enter. (It doesn't really matter if you use lowercase, uppercase, or mixed case.)

Word replaces this text with 3 paragraphs of 5 sentences each. Each sentence is the classic and ever-popular "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." You can vary the number of sentences per paragraph, as well as the number of paragraphs, by using the format =rand(p,s) in step 2. In this format, p is replaced with the number of paragraphs you want, and s is replaced with the number of sentences per paragraph. Thus, if you wanted 9 paragraphs of 7 sentences each, you could use =rand(9,7) in step 2. You can leave out the sentence count parameter, if desired, and Word will resort to the default of 5 sentences per paragraph.

If this doesn't work, check the following:

1. Choose AutoCorrect (or AutoCorrect Options) from the Tools menu. Word displays the AutoCorrect dialog box, with the AutoCorrect tab displayed. (Click here to see a related figure.)
2. Make sure the Replace Text As You Type check box is selected.
3. Click on OK to close the dialog box.

It is interesting to note that if you look through AutoCorrect replacement text entries in the AutoCorrect dialog box, you will find nothing there about this feature. It seems, instead, to be built into Word "behind the scenes."