Yes, your abbreviations should be easy to type and remember. isn't actually all that efficient, right? Stick to the shortest abbreviations possible to maximize your efficiency.īut Not Too Brief. Remember: Text expander apps are all about keeping your characters typed to characters produced ratio down. These tips will start you down the right path: Make it easy on yourself by setting up short, simple, yet unique strings for your each phrase. If the abbreviation for your snippet is long, complex, or tough to remember, you're going to waste time grasping for the right combination of characters. Start out by hitting the "New Snippet" button, which will open up a blank template to work with. If you really want to supercharge your workflow, tailor custom snippets and abbreviations to your typing style. They're a nice starting point, but they'll only get you so far.
Most text expansion apps come with some built-in snippets. We'll also go over how macros make your life easier, and how you can customize your tool to sync and back up snippets. To get you on the path to complete text-expander mastery, let's cover the bare essentials-defining an easy-to-remember syntax and organizing your snippets. Two minutes saved each week turns into 2 hours saved each year, after all. Even if an abbreviation only saves you a couple minutes per week, it's worth the 20 seconds it takes to set one up. Text expansion apps can be as complex or as simple as you want-it all depends on the snippets you create. Each of them help you do the same thing: type less, and work faster. There's a wide variety of text expansion apps: aText, TextExpander, TypeIt4Me, PhraseExpress, PhraseExpander, Breevy, and even the text replacement tool built into your iPhone. Your delimiter can be something like a space, a tab, or a symbol, and they tell your app "Ok, expand my text now!"Īll you need is a text expander app and a few minutes to write down snippets of text you type out often, and you'll start shaving seconds off your day almost instantly. It's like a trigger at the end of a string that, when typed, transforms your abbreviation into the associated text. We'll cover your macro options in-depth below.Ī Delimiter is a character that sets your snippet into motion. Macros are dynamic bits of built-in syntax that you can use to do things like pull in today's date, place the cursor, paste text from the clipboard, or execute certain key combinations. You set it up once, and your text expander will link it to its abbreviation-and will paste it instead of your abbreviation whenever you type one. Snippets are the chunks of text, code, or other info that you want to drop into your work via an abbreviation. Once you type one out, your text will instantly expand into the space your abbreviation once occupied. You'll see these phrases or concepts used throughout your text expansion tool of choice, and this article:Ībbreviations are the codewords that you assign to blocks of text you type often (or "snippets"). Expanding Your Vocabularyīefore we get started, let's cover a few common terms so you aren't left scratching your head through this entire tutorial. If you spend more than half the day with your fingers resting on a keyboard, a text expander will help you reclaim typing time that you can put towards more important work. It's like comparing shorthand to word-for-word transcription: the former is faster when you stick to a system. Like a lot of productivity and automation strategies, text expansion is all about shaving seconds off of your most common tasks and racking up extra time. So far it's saved her 33.92 hours-almost a workweek of typing.īut you don't need to be a power user to see big benefits. She uses a text expansion app to drop common responses and links into help desk tickets, so our users get answers fast. The screenshot above is courtesy of one of our customer champions at Zapier, Vicky. Of course, minutes-saved will vary from person to person. But if you do that 20 times per week, your minutes spent clacking away grows exponentially.
Sure, it only takes four or five seconds to type out your phone number. It might be something simple like your company name or email address, or a more complex message like a sales pitch. There are hundreds of words and phrases you type out multiple times during the week, often without even noticing it.
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