![]() ![]() You are creating the system, so it’s easier to remember each shortcut. The best part is, you don’t have to learn a whole new system that doesn’t make sense to you. For example, you can tell a shortcut tool to change “ tsm” to “thanks so much.” Instead of typing, “I’ll get back to you by,” you can just type “,btyb.” You can set up your text expanders to be just a few symbols and letters, and the tool will automatically replace it with the longer phrase. Text snippets are small codes you create for phrases you use often. Typing these small phrases repeatedly adds up to hours of lost productivity time in a week. For instance, how often do you type, “thanks so much” or “per my last email?” Maybe you say “please let me know what you think” or “I’ll get back to you” several dozen times a day. Think about the words and phrases you use all the time when you type. Text Expanders, Text Snippets, and Text Shortcuts: What Are They?Ī rose – er, tool – by any other name, text expanders, text snippets, and text shortcuts are all names for a personalized form of digital shorthand. Try ProWritingAid's Editor for Yourself.Text Expanders, Text Snippets, and Text Shortcuts: What Are They?.Actually what happens when I type a company shortcut is that I get a shortcode which, when entered into my company’s publishing system, produces the company’s full, formal name, with a link to the website and - in the case of publicly traded companies - its stock ticker symbol. And having to append a space at the end of the shortcut screws up that system.Īnd I oversimplified above. In practice, when it’s time to mention a company name for the first time in an article, I type cq and then start typing the company name until the full, proper name appears. (Is there even a company called “Minisoft”? Whatever.) Thus, if I encounter another company with a name starting in “mi” - say, “Minisoft” - then the Microsoft shortcut would become cqmic and Minisoft becomes cqmin. When I run into a conflict when creating a new one, I edit the old one to add more letters until it becomes unique. Thus, tqli results in cqmi results in “Microsoft Corp.,” and so on. ![]() That’s followed by a q, then followed by the first few letters of the shortcut. Primarily that’s “t” for twitter handle, “c” for company name. My system is to start a shortcut with a letter indicating what kind of text string follows. The solution for me has been to use Drafts for most all of my writing for emails. The one big one that does not work is Mail. Most my use cases for text expansion on iOS are with apps that work with Text Expander. Plus, I got in early with Text Expander so I have the discounted subscription. I still have 7 months left on my Text Expander subscription so I am just going to continue with that for now. So now my Mac and iOS substitutions are out of sync - which was the whole point in the first place.įrustrating to say the least. My iPad and iPhone still have the new text snippets I added. So I lost all my new snippets on the Mac. For some reason, when I updated, my text snippets list on my Mac reverted back a list I had about 3 months ago. The second issue that I came across was when I updated to Mojave. I prefer how Text Expander automatically expands with the keystrokes and you don’t need to hit the space bar. The first issue is having to hit the space bar after the abbreviation to make it expand. I think I am going back to Text Expander. My wife likes it for what turns out to be good and interesting technological reasons. But for us moving into a new house it doesn’t make sense to have it switched ON.”Īnd 10 years later I’ve stopped using the landline. It doesn’t make sense to switch of the landline and go to the bother of changing your number for everyone. You’ve been living in that house for years. I feel old now.” He said, “Don’t feel old. This was the New Hot Thing, and I said to him, “We still have our landline. A friend who is 10 years older than me moved in to a new house and said he and his wife were not having a landline installed. Reminds me of something that happened 10 or so years ago. Because if someone were thinking about starting to use TE today, I’d ask them what they need that they can’t just do with Mac/iOS built-in tools. ![]() I can afford that.īut now I see why TextExpander ads keep focusing on the business collaboration uses. I have come to no real conclusion either, other than that it seems like it’s easier to keep using TextExpander – keep doing what I have been doing – and for $3+/mo. ![]()
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