Tip of the Month:  December 2007

Adobe InDesign: Create Boilerplate Text with Autocorrect

InDesign is much more user-friendly when it comes to typing text—thanks to the Story Editor—but you might wish for an easy way to type commonly used words or phrases over and over again. Use InDesign’s Autocorrect feature to perform this feature.

Say, for example, that you have to frequently type the text “as soon as possible.” You can edit your User dictionary in such a way that InDesign inserts the phrase for you.

1. In InDesign, go to the Edit menu, move to Preferences and select Autocorrect.
2. Select the Enable Autocorrect check box.
3. Click the Add button located at the bottom of the Preferences dialog box.
4. Enter a couple of letters that you normally wouldn’t type in the Misspelled Word text box. These will be trigger to insert the text.
5. Enter the correct phrase, such as as soon as possible, in the Correction text box.
6. Click OK to close the Add To Autocorrect List dialog box, and then click OK to close the Preferences dialog box.
7. Type the letters you added to the Misspelled Word list in your document, press the SPACEBAR, and then watch InDesign insert the correct words much more quickly than you could’ve typed them!

If you have any questions regarding this tip or need help implementing it in your own projects, contact Ranelle Maltas at 472-0585 or rmaltas2@unl.edu..