It's my understanding that autotext entries are part of the Preferences > Autocorrect tab, so probably embedded in the preferences .plist file...
The only helpful suggestions I may offer otherwise is to identify and locate the Word preferences file, and once you have that filename, copy it down somewhere. Then try to locate the same file in TimeMachine backups at a date that you know it worked, then copy the old file somewhere. Once you exit TimeMachine, over-write the new preference file with the recovered old one and restart Word. That SHOULD work, but in any case, clone your system and make a TimeMachine backup immediately before you do this, in case it does not...
It turns out that the preference file is a *.plist file as per this document...
So if you can find your old one in TimeMachine, you should be able to replace the new one with the old working one without having to reinstall Word....
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I suppose Paul's suggestion begs the question of where are the autotext entries actually stored? In my Word 2011? I found them in Word > Preferences > Autocorrect
Are they part of the preferences file ¨C as I posited above ¨C or are they included in the "Normal" document template that is stored elsewhere?
-JR
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Paul wrote:
Office 2016 (or Office 365)
the Normal.dotm file location is:
/UserName/:Library:Group Containers:Microsoft: some random number.Office:User Content:Templates
You should also be able to navigate to those folders, launch Time Machine, and restore the file from when it worked into the appropriate current location.
Hope that helps.
Paul
JR