AutoCorrect in PowerPoint 2010

The AutoCorrect feature in PowerPoint fixes hundreds of common typos and spelling errors within your PowerPoint slides -- automatically as you type any text. AutoCorrect also lets you map specific keys to a symbol, such as replacing two en dashes with an em dash the moment you hit the Enter key. The best feature within AutoCorrect is that it works so seamlessly that you may even take it for granted -- conversely, AutoCorrect can also be a pain sometimes! You may for example not want the two en dashes to automatically change to an en dash -- in this tutorial you will learn how you can take advantage of AutoCorrect, and also how you can override its options as required.

To see how AutoCorrect works, follow these steps:

1. Launch PowerPoint, and insert a new slide to a new or existing presentation. Make sure that your slide layout is Title and Content or any other layout that contains a text placeholder.


2. Within the text placeholder, try playing with these words, and watch how AutoCorrect rectifies mistakes and auto-completes shortcuts:
   
   
   • Spelling Errors: Type teh (see Figure 1) -- and then press your spacebar key thereafter. AutoCorrect replaces teh with its correct spelling, The (see Figure 2).
     
     
     Figure 1: The word teh, typed on the slide
     
     
     Figure 2: AutoCorrect replaces teh to The
     
     
   • Capitalization: Note that, other than correcting the spelling (refer to Figure 2), PowerPoint also capitalized the T in the, since T is the first letter of your sentence. Similarly, the word I is always autocorrected to be capitalized.
     
     
   • Symbols: Need some symbol text such as, a Trademark (TM) symbol? You can type (tm) and the trademark symbol ™ would be entered. Similarly, type (c) to insert ©, and (r) to insert ®.
     
     
   • Long Text: If you need to repeatedly enter a phrase or a sentence, you can set up AutoCorrect so as to automatically enter this phrase or sentence whenever you type some pre-decided short text. We cover how you can create your own AutoCorrect entries (short text that translates to longer content) in our Creating and Editing AutoCorrect Entries in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
   
   
3. If you end up with an AutoCorrect version of some text that you don't want changed, you can quickly press Ctrl+Z on your keyboard to undo the AutoCorrect action.
   
   
4. Save your presentation often.