Abstract: A method and word processing system for automatically replacing one or more characters of text entered by a user in a word processing document with the corresponding plain text, formatted text, or other object. The user can select among a plurality of predefined autocorrect options in an Autocorrect dialog box that is displayed when the autocorrect function is selected from the menu or toolbar of the word processing system. These options include changing straight quotes to smart quotes, correcting words that begin with two initial upper case letters so that only the first letter is upper case, capitalizing the first letter of any sentence that is not capitalized, capitalizing the names of the days of the week if not already capitalized, and replacing text entered by the user with either plain text, formatted text, a graphic picture, or other type of object.