Productivity

Typing it All Out is So Old School

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I’m always on the hunt for a solid, time-saving computer hack. Anything that will help me read faster, jump higher, and sleep deeper is sure to make my list of favorite things. So I was excited to stumble upon a sweet little Mac application this morning called TextExpander . The concept is simple: if you spend time writing on your computer, there are probably a lot of phrases and lines that you use over and over again. (email signatures, greetings, phone numbers, etc.) Super-software to the rescue! By setting up what are called “snippets,” you can have TextExpander do the dirty work for you.

For example, if you like to change your email signature depending on who you’re emailing, you can set up a snippet for each signature. Let’s say you have a signature for work, and a separate signature when writing to friends. You could set your work signature up with the snippet of “sigw” so every time you type “sigw” (minus the quotes), TextExpander will convert those letter to your full email signature.

There is also a modified spell-checker which automatically fixes often-misspelled words on the fly. And for those of you who write code, there is a group of snippets specifically for HTML markup. If I tried to explain all the little tips, this post would be way too long.

Instead, check out the post about it at MacApper.com. Blogger Michael Mistretta does a fine job showing us what to expect from TextExpander. (hope he doesn’t mind the publicity)

For those of you on a PC, there are similar programs for Windows as well. Lifehacker.com recently featured a post about a free program called Texter. Which reminds me - TextExpander is not free. You can get a 30-day trial, but after that it’s $29.95.