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Deleting Multiple Building Blocks in Word


The Tip of the Night for April 9, 2017 showed how you can use a macro to create multiple Auto Text entries hyperlinked to PDF files in Microsoft Word. While this is an invaluable tool to give attorneys a way to quickly access deposition or trial exhibits, once a case is over you may to get rid of these Auto Text entries, without re-running the macro to overwrite them with other Auto Text entries.

Auto Text entries are user created Building Blocks in MS Word. In Word 2010, you can get a list of your building blocks by going to Insert . . . Quick Parts . . .Building Blocks Organizer. However the Organizer has a shortcoming: it doesn't allow you to select and delete multiple (or all) AutoText entries . If you want to delete them, you have to delete them one by one.

Greg Maxey, the creator of the Word Add-in profiled in the Tip of the Night for September 19, 2015, has come up with a free solution for this problem. At his site, The Anchorage, you can download an add-in for Word [scroll to the bottom of the page] which will add a new tab to your Word menu. The add-in is simply a file with the extension .dotm. If you click on it it will open in Word, and after accepting some terms of usage and being given the option to change the default settings . . ..

. . . you'll be able to go ahead and access all of its features in the new Building Blocks tab.

If you click on the Organizer Enhanced Tools option, you'll get the opportunity to remove multiple building blocks. Be sure that you have the correct template [usually normal.dotm] selected.

. . . go back into the Word's regular Building Block Organizer and you'll see the changes.


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