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June 8, 2007
Crash of the Symbols
Dear Larry,
I frequently have to include the Euro symbol in the Word
documents I type. I do this by clicking Insert, Symbol in the menu bar, but this
seems awfully slow. I sure hope you have a better way.
R. M.
Dear R. M.,
One easy way to accomplish this is to capitalize on a
technique I discussed in last week’s column: Word’s AutoCorrect feature. I’ll
demonstrate how you can use this to create a Euro symbol as you type. (For those
who don’t dabble in European currency, the Euro symbol (€) looks like a capital
C with an equal sign through it, thus creating a stylized E.)
Start by creating a blank document in Word. In the Word menu
bar, click Insert, Symbol. Scroll through the selection until you locate the
Euro symbol. (You can set the Font box to “(normal text)” and the Subset box to
“Currency Symbols” to make it easier to find.) Once you stumble upon the Euro
symbol, click it.
At the bottom of the Insert Symbol window, note that Word’s
shortcut key for the Euro symbol is Alt+Ctrl+E (hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys
while you tap the E key). You might prefer this method for generating a Euro
symbol, but let’s ignore this for the time being.
With the Euro symbol highlighted, click Insert, then click
Close. Notice the appearance of the Euro symbol in your document now. With the
blinking cursor immediately to its right, hold down the Shift key and tap the
Left Arrow key to highlight the Euro symbol. (Alternatively, use your mouse to
click and drag over it.) With the Euro symbol highlighted, press Ctrl+C on your
keyboard (hold down the Ctrl key and tap the C key). Although it doesn’t look
like anything happened, something did—Word copied the Euro symbol into memory.
I can hear you muttering: “This is easier!?” Trust me... it’s
time for the pièce de résistance.
In the Word menu bar, click Tools, AutoCorrect Options, then
be certain the AutoCorrect tab is selected. See the Replace box in the middle of
the window? Click inside it and type “c=” (without the quotes). Next, click
inside the With box to the right, then press Ctrl+V to paste the Euro symbol
that we copied earlier. If you performed the copy step correctly, a Euro symbol
should appear inside the With box. Click OK to finish.
So what have we done? We’ve told Word that if at any time it
sees we’ve typed the characters c= in any document, it should immediately
replace them with the Euro symbol.
What if you really wanted to type c= in your document? As soon
as you see the Euro symbol appear, press Backspace and this will cause the Euro
to revert back to the actual characters you typed.
You can use this technique to create any symbols you commonly
use. Have Word replace “l=” with the Pound (£), “c/” with the Cent (¢), “?=”
with the (¿), etc.
Now pardon me while I type (c) and remind you that this column
is ©.
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
