SMS (Short Message Service) and IM (Instant Message) have be an evolution and become the preferred means of communication for alot of us nowadays.
While there are clear benefits of this medium… its fast, easy, handy and alway available, there is one drawback which if not corrected can be VERY embarassing…
The reason SMS are so popular is because they are short and you have the luxury of using shortcuts for example “hw are u” (how are you) or “r u cming 2 wrk 2day?” (are you coming to work today?). You will find this shortcuts almost anywhere, SMS, Facebook status, Twitter updates etc (surprisingly in formal emails too).
Using shortcuts is fine and fun but terrible if you get into the habit of it and start using such shortcuts in emails to your clients/customers…
Image writing an email full of shortcuts to the President of an large organization… using “u” instead of “you”.
Lets admit it, we all have got into the habit of using such shortcuts and have ended up using it in our work emails too. This is a habit which is here to stay with mobile communication becoming so popular and I would not suggest fighting against it or rehabilitating yourself.
Rather I would like to share a very handy trick right inside your Outlook which can help you correct this common mistakes.
I’m sure you all are aware of the AutoCorrect feature, most of you might refer to it as “spell check“. Yes this is the same feature which corrects common spelling mistakes like “teh” changing it to “the” etc.
Now you can use this same built-in feature to overwrite common shortcuts… so even if you end up typing shortcuts, AutoCorrect will replace the shortcut with the correct text.
Say for example, you want to ensure that anytime you use the letter “u” in your email content, you want it corrected to the word “you“.
Here’s what you need to do…
- Start Outlook
- In Outlook 2010, click File > Options > click on the Mail tab
In Outlook 2007, click Tools > Options - Click Spelling and AutoCorrection…
- Click AutoCorrect Options…
- As shown in the highlighted section, in the Replace box, type your commonly typed shortcut (in this example we are using “u”)
- In the box beside it, type the correct word (“You” in our example)
- Click Add (repeat the above 3 steps to enter other corrections)
- Click OK until all screens are closed.
- Now compose a new email, type the letter “u” and press SPACEBAR or ENTER. This should replace the letter with the correct word.
I hope you find this tip handy in your everyday email communication.
We would like to thank “Drew Egan” for sharing this tip with us and our readers.
If you have any suggestions for email tips which you like to share with our readers, let us know by leaving a comment below or emailing it to news@addins4outlook.com.
