The Sisyphus Comments

Speed Things Up In Word 2007 With Quick Parts

If you tend to repeatedly use use the same phrases of text or graphics, you have probably used figured out that the AutoText feature in Word can be a real time saver. Word 2007 takes the same concept a step further with a graphical gallery that is a lot more user friendly, called Quick Parts. One of the benefits of Quick Parts is you don’t have to remember what you named the replacement text since your creations are presented visually.

Creating a new Quick Part is really simple:

1. Select the items that you want for the Quick Part (text, graphics, a table, a WordArt object, etc.).
2. Press Alt + F3 to create the Quick Part. (You can also use the Insert tab == Text group, select the Quick Parts option, and at the bottom of the gallery select “Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.”
3. Word opens the Create New Building Block dialog box. In the name field, type in your Quick Part name.
4. Leave the Gallery as Quick Parts. Choose a category (you can also make a new one), then type a short description that explains the purpose of the Quick Part in the Description field.
5. Leave the “Save in” field as “Building Blocks.dotx”, a template file. (A template is what makes your Quick Part available in all documents.)
6. Choose how you will want to insert the Quick Part when you select it: insert it at the insertion point, insert it in a new paragraph, or insert it on a new page.
7. Click on OK.

To use the Quick Part, go to the Insert tab, find the Text group, select the Quick Parts option, and double-click on the Quick Part from the gallery to insert it based on the option you selected in Step 6. When you exit Word, just click Yes to save your changes to the Building Blocks template.

There you have it – your first big time saver in Word 2007. If you need to access some additional instructions, search for Quick Part Building Block in Word’s Help file.

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