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Back up Word's four critical files

1.  Normal.dot:  Stores formatted AutoCorrect entries, AutoText entries, keyboard shortcuts, menu customizations, custom toolbars, styles, macros.
2.  .acl file:  Stores unformatted AutoCorrect entries.  The easiest way to locate this file is to add an entry and look for the most current modified date in your search.
3.  custom.dic file:  Words you add during spellcheck.
4.  Templates you create (.dot files).

Where these files are located depends on your version of Word and Windows.  The name of the .acl file also depends on your version of Word.

If you are not sure of the location of files:

1.  Right-click the Start button and select Find (Search in Windows XP).
2.  Type the file name in the Name box.  To locate the .acl file, type *.acl (asterisk dot acl) in the Name box.
3.  Change the Look in box to your main drive.
4.  Click Find (Search) Now.
5.  When your file(s) appears in the search window, right-click the file and select SendTo to copy files to your floppy/Zip/CD.

If you forget the location of the file when you need to restore it back to it's original folder, use Find (Search) again.

With some installations of Word *and* Windows, your system may not locate or "recognize" the normal.dot and .acl file until you make valid changes to each file.  Add entries to AutoCorrect and AutoText, close Word and answer yes to the prompt to save normal.dot, then try again to locate the files.  

Some installations of Windows XP hides various files.  If your search does not reveal certain files, go to Windows Explorer/Tools menu/Folder Options/View tab and check the box next to "Show all hidden files" and clear the check mark next to "Hide extensions for known file types."  Run search again.

Note:  If you are transferring the Word 97 .acl file to a later version of Word, you must first back up the username.acl file, then change the name of the file to match the name of the file in the later version before transferring.  

You can also use Word's AutoCorrect Utility to back up and restore entries.  See this thread in our Tech Forum.

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Customize Right-click Shortcut Menus in Word

How to customize the right-click menu in Microsoft Word.

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Backup/restore/transfer

Don't forget to back up critical files in Word!

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AutoCorrect Utility

Word comes with a supplemental macros template that includes the AutoCorrect Utility.  The utility is used to back up and restore entries.  If you only do the backup portion, it will create a regular Word document that you can print.

When transferring entries to another computer, you must install and run the utility on both computers.  

Note:  The Microsoft utility will not work on multi-line entries.  See the AutoCorrect Special download in our Software Vault to backup/restore multi-line and table entries.  

Supplemental Macros File Names:  
Word 97: macros8.dot (included on Office installation CD or download from Microsoft site)
Word 2000: macros9.dot (download from Microsoft site)
Word 2002/2003: support.dot (included on Office installation CD)

Microsoft Download Site

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Assign Keyboard Shortcuts in Word

To assign (or reassign) keyboard shortcuts to any command, macro, AutoText entry, style, or commonly-used symbol:

1.  Right-click a blank area of the Menu bar and select Customize (or go to Tools/Customize).
2.  Click on the Keyboard button at the bottom of the dialog box.
3.  In the Save changes in box, save the shortcut key change to Normal.dot (the default).
4.  In the Categories box on the left, single-click the category that contains the command or click All Commands.
5.  In the Commands box on the right, single-click on the name of the command.  Any shortcut keys that are currently assigned appear in the Current keys box.
6.  In the Press new shortcut key box, press the key combination you want to assign.
7.  Click on the Assign button and press Enter to close the dialog box.

If the new key combination is already assigned to a shortcut, the assignment will appear directly below the new shortcut key window.  Press a new key combination and click Assign.

If you want to remove or change an existing shortcut, select the current shortcut in the Current keys box, then click on Remove.  Assign the new shortcut.

If you are asked if you want to save changes to the normal.dot file when you shut Word down, answer Yes.

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Formatting AutoText Entries in Word

When you create an entry using a document's default font, the entry will insert into any document and take on the new document's font attributes.

Unexpected Font changes:  Entries are stored with whatever character format changes you apply to them.  For example, if you create an entry by highlighting text and also change the default font of Times New Roman to Arial, the entry will always insert as Arial no matter what the default font is in a new document.  Do not highlight text and change the font when creating entries unless you always want a particular entry in a specific format no matter what font you are using in documents.

Bold/Italics/Underline:  These attributes added to a default font will carry along with the entry and take on the default paragraph style of the new document when inserted.  For example, if you change the default font of Times New Roman to all caps and bold, it will insert into a document with the default font set at Arial as Arial, all caps and bold.

Paragraph marks: Include the ending paragraph mark when your entry contains formatting such as centering text on a line or when you want the entry to save you more keystrokes by automatically dropping down additional lines (e.g., for headings).  To see paragraph marks while working in documents, go to Tools/Options/View and check Paragraph Mark in the Formatting Marks section or press Ctrl + Shift + 8 to toggle marks on/off.

To check the default font of your document, go to Format/Style, single-click on the style in use and check the description box.  To change the default font, go to Format/Font, make your change, and click the Default button at the bottom left of the dialog box.  If you are asked if you want to save changes to the template when you quit Word, answer yes.

Storing AutoText entries in client-specific templates (.dot files) allows you to use the same name for entries that may vary by a word or two, thus eliminating the need to remember many unique names.

Storing all AutoText entries in a separate global template that automatically loads from Word's startup folder gives you the ability to easily share entries and keeps the normal.dot file lean and less susceptible to corruption.

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Audio requirements for good digital sound

This is a summary of what makes for good vs. poor digital recordings, and what you should look for in the way of specs for your handheld digital recorders, microphones, or any other digital dictation system.

The explanation for relatively poor sound in telephone dictation is quite simple. Audio quality is related to frequency response range and sampling rate frequency.

This is the sampling frequency/quality of various audio types:

8,000 Hz (8 KHz) Telephone Quality

11,025 Hz (11 KHz) Poor AM Radio Quality

16,000 Hz (16 KHz) Reasonable compromise between 11 KHz and 22 KHz

22,050 Hz (22 KHz) Near FM Radio Quality

32,075 Hz (32 KHz) Better than FM Radio Quality (Some boards support 32,000 instead)

44,100 Hz (44 KHz) CD Quality

48,000 Hz (48 KHz) DAT Quality

The minimum frequency required for a recording for use with speech recognition is 11 KHz; 22 KHz is considered to give much better results. (Sampling rate must be at least twice the highest frequency you want to hear.)

The frequency response range of telephone audio is 300 to 3300 Hz, which covers the most important normal human voice range (voice pitch), but the normal human ear hears and responds to a much wider range of frequencies, between 30 and 20,000 Hz. Speech clarity is greatly improved for a range that extends from 125 up to 5000 Hz instead of only 300 to 3300, and complete vocal fidelity requires a range from 80 up to 8000 Hz. Speech recognition needs a range 125 Hz to 5000 to 6000 Hz for acceptable performance. A lot of breathiness and sibiliance occurs in the 6000 to 12000 Hz range, so in some cases you may want to filter higher frequencies, but it is better to record a broader range of frequencies and filter unwanted sound than to have a recording that does not include sounds you need for better recognition within its pitch range.

The sample size, or number of computer bits used to store a sound waveform sample, also greatly affects digitally recorded sound quality. Voice cards in many telephony systems use only a 4 to 8 bit sample size. The fidelity of such a recording is noticeably lower than that made by a typical audio card, which uses 8 to 16 bit sample size for its stored audio data. Sound for use with speech recognition software should preferably be recorded using at least a 16 bit sample size, and will not work at all if recorded at less than an 8 bit sample size.

Think about this information. If computer speech recognition software cannot reliably distinguish the sounds on a telephone recording made at 8 KHz with a frequency range of only 300 to 3300 Hz and stored using only an 8 bit sample size or less, why are you sitting there trying to do it?

Likewise, when you are looking into purchasing any dictation recording equipment, ask specific questions about frequency rate, frequency range, and bit sample size of the recording it will be making. Do not settle for any solution that does not meet the minimum specs for computer voice recognition software. If the computer needs to hear something in order to achieve good speech recognition, so do you.

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Solid information on audio specs for digital recorders can be a little hard to dig up, so I am going to post some notes from my archives here.

I am not overly enamored of the sound quality of .dss compression on any recorder, but my subjective impression when listening to both lines' high-end recorders was that Philips sound had a definite edge on Olympus sound. I have not listened to a Sanyo. If you look at the specs below, you will see that my ears, at least, detected a distinct difference in sound quality between a top frequency response of 5000Hz and one of 6000Hz. Since a number of consonantal sounds occur in the higher frequencies, I think there is probably going to be a difference there to more ears than mine. My own choice of digital recorders when I started, based purely on sound quality, was Sony. Some people on SMT listened to comparative Sony .msv and Olympus .dss files and claimed they were of nearly identical quality, but to me there is a quite obvious difference. I always have to strain a bit to differentiate some sounds on a .dss recording. Now, there are a number of reasons why one might prefer a Philips recorder to a Sony recorder, based on support for the codec, ease of use, ability to split demographics from the rest of the dictation, and other features, but as far as sound quality, I never felt there was any equal for Sony sound. The tech specs below bear me out on that, but only you can decide how much it matters to your ears. If you do opt for a .dss recorder, I think you may hear a real difference between a 5,000 Hz and a 6,000 Hz top frequency response, so for that alone I would recommend Philips over Olympus.

Sanyo ICR-B5000
LD-ADPCM compressed .wav codec
11kHz, frequency response 300-5300Hz

Philips DPM 9450
.dss codec
12kHz, frequency response 300-6000Hz

Olympus DS 4000
.dss codec
12kHz, frequency response 300-5000Hz

Sony ICD-BM1
proprietary .msv codec
16kHz, frequency response 60-7000 Hz, 16 bit sample size
(has a 41kHz, 60-13,500 Hz, stereo mode available, but files would be large for internet transmission, and that high a frequency response is only needed for recording singing, not ordinary speech.)

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When listening to dictation recorded on some digital systems, people not infrequently make a complaint that a dictator sounds like Sylvester the cat.

Here is a link to a diagram of the frequencies of various spoken letters that shows why recordings with high-frequency response that tops out at 3500 to 5000 Hz are apt to have problems with the sounds of f, s, h, and th.

Sound frequencies of various phonemes

Why are these sounds usually not so distorted in a telephone conversation, given that the telephone frequency range is only 300 to 3500 Hz? Because telephones actually record at frequencies up to 8000 Hz, and then adjust frequencies downward when they process the sound for transmission to fit it in the 300 to 3500 Hz range that will be received at the other end. So while telephone sound is not terribly good, you are less likely to end up thinking you tought you heard a puddy tat when listening to people on the phone than when listening to their recordings made on a digital recorder with a top frequency response of 5000 Hz.

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Print/save a list of Word's built-in

Word contains more than 1000 built-in keyboard commands and shortcuts.  Pre-assigned shortcut keys don't have to cramp your working style -- you have the ability to change the three-key shortcuts you use most often to one or two keys that are not an awkward stretch for your fingers.  

Remember that you also have the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts to commands rather than pressing Alt and underlined letters to invoke buried menu commands.  

1.  Go to Tools/Macro/Macros to open the Macro dialog box.
2.  Select Word Commands from the Macros In drop-down list.
3.  Type ListCommands (note no spaces) in the Macro Name box (or scroll down and single-click on ListCommands).
4.  Click the Run button and click OK for Current Menu and Keyboard Settings in the resulting dialog box.  Select All Word Commands if your version of Word offers this option.  

A Word document containing all built-in commands appears in a Table format for saving or printing.  This table can also be sorted to easily locate commands and shortcuts.

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Hunt down and disable unnecessary start-up items

Sysinternals "Autoruns" is a utility that works on all versions of Windows and shows you your auto-start applications as well as the full list of Registry and file system locations available for auto-start configuration.  You can easily disable items from start-up by unchecking them, and you can delete auto-start entries if desired (to be done with extreme caution, of course).

It also shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them, a nice feature, and if you want to get fancy, you can configure Autoruns to do a number of things, such as show Explorer shell extension locations and other locations, or hide signed MS entries so there is less to look through.  It also has a command-line equivalent that can output in CSV format, Autorunsc.

More thorough than the standard MSConfig, which is not available for Windows 2000 anyway.  

Sound interesting?  You can download this free app here

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Fixing MS Word

Many people try to fix problems with Word by uninstalling and reinstalling.  This often does not fix problems because many problems lie in the Windows registry and they do not get fixed when you reinstall.  Uninstall in versions prior to Word (Office) 2002 does not remove Registry values and problems remain.  

Microsoft developed an "eraser" utility for Word (Office) 2000.  The utility can be downloaded at:  Utility to completely remove Office files and registry entries

According to Microsoft, this utility is not necessary for Word (Office) 2002 and 2003 as they uninstall themselves cleanly.  

The majority of common problems with Word can be solved in a matter of seconds if you keep a backup of the normal.dot and simply transfer this file back to the correct folder on your hard drive.

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