Easily Backing Up AutoText Entries

The AutoText feature in Word is quite helpful, as it provides a quick way to enter common information into your document with just a few keystrokes. Exactly how you use AutoText has been described in other issues of WordTips. After you have been using it a while, and after you have created a range of AutoText entries, you may wonder how to back up all those entries.

Backing up your AutoText entries is very easy, if you remember where those entries are stored. By default, all AutoText entries are stored in the Normal.dot template. You can, if you take special care when defining AutoText entries, store them in different templates, but most people don't—they are simply in the Normal.dot template, where they can be used with all of your documents.

Once you understand that AutoText entries are in Normal.dot, then you can simply back up that file and you back up your AutoText entries. In the alternative, if you do have AutoText entries stored in other template files, all you need to do is back up those files, and you will also be covered on that front.

If you determine the folder in which the Normal.dot file is stored, you can quickly create your own "template backup tool." Sit down with a pencil and paper, and use the Windows Search tool to locate Normal.dot, or any other template in which you stored AutoText entries. Once you locate them, write down the complete path names. For instance, on my system, I wrote down the following:

C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\normal.dot

Your Normal.dot file will probably be in a different place; make sure you write down the path accurately.

Once you have the path for your template file, follow these steps:

1. Open Notepad. (Start | Programs | Accessories | Notepad.)
2. In Notepad, type the following command, replacing the word "source" with the full path to your template file (the one you wrote down) and replacing the word "destination" with the full path to where you want your backup to be located. If there are spaces within either your source or destination path (as there is in the example above), make sure you surround them with quote marks.

     copy source destination

3. Press Enter and type a similar line for each template you want to back up.
4. Save the Notepad file, giving it a name that ends with .bat, such as "SaveTemplate.bat".
5. Exit Notepad.
6. Right-click on your desktop. Windows displays a Context menu from which you should choose New, and then Shortcut. (What you see next depends on the version of Windows you are using.)
7. Click the Browse button to locate the file you saved in step 4. This is the program (technically, a "batch file") that you want the shortcut to execute for you.
8. Finish creating your shortcut. When done, it should appear on your desktop.
9. Right-click the new shortcut and choose Properties from the Context menu. Windows displays a Properties dialog box for the shortcut. The exact appearance of this dialog box—and the tabs it contains—depends on your version of Windows.
10. Check the various tabs in the dialog box until you locate the Run drop-down list. Change this drop-down list to choose the Minimized option.
11. Check the various tabs in the dialog box until you locate the Close On Exit check box. (This check box may not be available on some versions of Windows.) This check box should be selected.
12. Close the Properties dialog box.

Now you have a batch file that will issue the command necessary to copy your Normal.dot template (or any other templates you specified in step 3) every time you double-click on the shortcut. You should make sure that you only run the backup when Word is not running. This is because any changes you make to your AutoText entries are not saved until you exit Word, so if you back up while Word is running, you won't save any AutoText changes made during the current Word session.

This approach to back up files (using a batch file) is handy for backing up other files, as well. All you need to do is adjust the source and destination in the copy command, and you can develop a batch file that does exactly what you want it to do. Toward that end, you may want to learn which other files you may want to back up in Word. The following resources, maintained at the Word MVP site, will help you in this regard:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/FilesToBackup.htm
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/ExportAutocorrect.htm