Word – Formatting rules in Word 2010 to style a certain phrase or word

microsoft wordmicrosoft-word-2010

I was hoping/looking for a feature similar to the conditional formatting available in Excel. The particular rule I'm trying to create:

Find text "My Spiffy Product 3.0", and format it:
- Bold; and
- Smallcaps

Is there a Word 2010 feature that allows me to format bits of text in my document automatically?

Some additional thoughts:

  • There's a related question on conditional table formatting, but this is not about tables but pieces of text.
  • I'm looking for a feature that's (close to) "always on", so Search & Replace on itself doesn't cut it.
  • My case is Word 2010, but it would be nice to know if solutions/answers are available in 2007 as well.
  • I'm not too fussed about the available formatting options (bold, color, etc), anything that makes the text stand out a bit more is fine.

Best Answer

You can use the AutoCorrect feature of MS Word to do this. Use the following steps:

  1. Type your text "Spiffy Product 3.0"
  2. Format your text the way you want it to be
  3. Highlight the text
  4. Go to Options -> Proofing -> AutoCorrect
  5. In the AutoCorrect dialog box, type the phrase you want replaced "My Spiffy Product 3.0" (or feel free to shorten to SP3, or something similary quick to type)
  6. Make sure the "With Formatted Text" radio button is selected.
  7. Click okay to accept the changes.

From now on, whenever you type the text you entered, it will automatically convert to your formatted text. And, when you upgrade to Spiffy Product 4.0, it's easy to add this to AutoCorrect as well.

Also, if you have documents that aren't already properly formatted yet, you can use the find/replace function with similar formatted text option to pick up old entries.

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