Here’s some Office Watch readers suggestions for using Microsoft Office’s Autocorrect with to quickly type common phrases and symbols like the degree sign and temperature.
Yehuda Z says:
“I use (0) to auto-correct to the symbol for degrees ?. It makes things much easier.
I also use ty and tyvm for Thank you! and Thank you very much! respectively.
Little tricks like this save lots of time! “
Degree symbol ° shortcut
If you type the degree sign for a variety of purposes – temperature, co-ordinates or angles then you might prefer to assign an autocorrect entry for the degree sign alone, just as Yehuda has done.
Word has an inbuilt shortcut Ctrl + @ to make the degree symbol °
From reader feedback, it seems people prefer other Autocorrect shortcuts for the degree sign.
(0) is easier to remember and is similar to other bracketed () Word shortcuts like (tm) to make ™ and (c) for ©
~^ with the caret symbol (Shift + 6 )
^^
We like having a prefix character such as the tilde or caret (which are rarely used) plus a second character to make an Autocorrect shortcut. This makes them easier to remember, quick to type and they all show up together in the Autocorrect list.
Temperatures
Typing in temperatures is a nuisance with that little degree sign hiding from the keyboard.
An alternative could be to use a special character like the tilde ~ or accent ^ after the F or C (for Fahrenheit or Celsius) either as two separate characters or the combined single symbol version
Degree Celsius ℃ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Degree Fahrenheit ℉ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Some Autocorrect entries could be:
~C becomes °C
~F becomes °F
So now you can type 32 ~C and it’ll change to 32 °C automatically.
Pedantry Corner:
According to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures the correct formatting for units is the value, a space, then the symbol. So 58 F° or 32°C are both wrong and should be 58 °F and 32 °C respectively.
“The numerical value always precedes the unit, and a space is always used to separate the unit from the number. Thus the value of the quantity is the product of the number and the unit, the space being regarded as a multiplication sign (just as a space between units implies multiplication). The only exceptions to this rule are for the unit symbols for degree, minute, and second for plane angle, °, ‘, and “, respectively, for which no space is left between the numerical value and the unit symbol.
http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter5/5-3-2.html
This rule means that the symbol °C for the degree Celsius is preceded by a space when one expresses values of Celsius temperature . “
Degree Celsius ℃ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Degree Fahrenheit ℉ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
