it's become fairly common in outlook to type the smiley face instead of the emoticon. you know, the actual little smiley that is a wingdings-J instead of the :). me, i am a fan of :) - oldschool. but firstly, it's difficult to put :) inside parens (if you see what i mean :)) and secondly, there's a point where oldschool becomes merely old, and i feel that approaching.
it's kind of a pain to insert a smiley using the insert menu. outlook autocorrect will replace :) with a smiley, but to get that, you have to put up with all the other autocorrects, and i'm really not a fan of autocorrect. i know i'm not alone because i've read other blogs - there are some of us who choose to correct our own spelling and don't want any automated assistance.
so, i want just the one autocorrect. outlook has a metric shit-ton. how to get rid of all the others? the interface offers you the opportunity to delete each of the other autocorrects individually, by hand. that's too tedious for me.
put up with autocorrects. delete the unwanted ones one-by-one. leave autocorrect off and keep going to the insert menu for the smiley. no good options!
or... are there?
today i had an amount of time on my hands. i could have used this time to actually clean out my email box, but i had gotten through a week of constant meetings, some of which were quite stressful, and i just didn't feel like doing actual work-work. seemed like a great opportunity to futz with the old computer for a while.
so i googled and searched and searched and googled and finally located partial instructions which i put together with a little trial & error of my own and wah-lah -- the perfect solution!
it goes like this:
open outlook.
open c:\users\%username%\appdata\roaming\microsoft\office.
find *.acl.
move (i.e., cut&paste) all .acl files to a new folder on the desktop.
in outlook, choose: tools -- options -- mailformat -- editoroptions -- proofing -- autocorrectoptions.
on the autocorrect options page, "replace text as you type" should be empty.
add one simple rule (e.g., replace "smile" with "smile"). save, accept, okay - whatever it takes to set this one simple rule in place.
this establishes a presence in the .acl file -- even though it is small, it exists. outlook loads the list when you open outlook, and so, because you've done this with outlook open, outlook doesn't even know the .acl is missing. if you delete the .acl when outlook is closed (or, delete it with outlook open then close outlook without replacing the .acl), microsoft will create a new, full, default .acl the next time you open outlook. get it? you must do all this with outlook remaining open!
open a new message.
don't worry about to, cc, any of that. put the cursor in the message body.
choose insert---symbol then choose the smiley.
select the smiley in the body of note. like, as if you were going to copy it. select.
click "office button" on note's upper left corner and choose editoroptions -- proofing --- autocorrectoptions.
the smile should be in the "with" section.
type ":)" in the replace box.
close outlook.
reopen outlook.
choose: tools -- options -- mailformat -- editoroptions -- proofing -- autocorrectoptions.
on the autocorrect options page, "replace text as you type" should contain only your entries.
YOU'RE WELCOME!
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