Copy your AutoCorrect list

As you may have read in the latest blog, AutoCorrect is a very useful feature in most Microsoft Office applications.

Once you have created your own personal list of favorite words to expand you probably want to bring a copy of that AutoCorrect list with you to all the other computers that you use. This can easily be accomplished a few different ways. There are several comprehensive tools out there, including some Microsoft tools, but I mostly only need to copy the AutoCorrect list file, so I do it the old fashioned way. I copy the physical file.

The AutoCorrect list file has an extension of ACL (AutoCorrect List). The file is named MSOxxxx.acl where xxxx designates the language that the file is for. There is an ACL file for each language you have used. For example, MSO1033.acl is the ACL file for language of English (US). Lastly, the file is typically located in your application data folders, so you'll likely find it in "C:\Documents and Settings\NN.NN\Application Data\Microsoft\Office", where Windows NN.NN is your user name.

So simply copy the file (e.g. "C:\Documents and Settings\NN.NN\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\MSO1033.acl") to the same location on your other PC and you now have the same AutoCorrect list on both.

As you will now start growing your very own AutoCorrect list, you can even share it between home, work, client assignments, etc. I personally have a USB stick (aka Pen Drive) that I always carry with me, and in my tools folder on the USB drive, I always have the latest version of my ACL file.

Nifty.