But you can add words to the list. In fact, you can add just about anything to the list. I created a letterhead, with my name in bold left aligned, a horizontal ling beneath it, then my address and phone number right aligned in small type, plus a couple of carriage returns to get me down to where I’d like to start typing my letter. Then I selected the whole thing and opened the autocorrect dialog, which came up with the selected text, including fonts and alignment, listed as the “change to” text. I typed “alhead” in as the “change from” text and the job was done. Now all I have to do is type alhead as the first word in a document, and it is instantly on my letterhead.

The only problem is, what with email and texting, I virtually never send any snail mail any more…

The right thing to do is to use Styles in the first place. It’s one of those things — like using version control — that seems like a lot more work, when it’s really a lot less. Learn about styles, use them. Want to apply your carefully-crafted font, border, and paragraph settings to a paragraph? Put your cursor there, and select the style from the styles sidebar or dropdown. Poof.

The big gain, though, comes in changing the style itself. If you write documentation, say, and you have a style called “code example” — and you decide that your code examples should use Consolas instead of Courier one day. If you used the style, all you have to do is edit the style itself, and all your code examples’ formats will change.

Saves a lot of time in formatting documents for submission, too…