I use TE snippets for emails that require only small changes from a stock response, have created items such as expense reports that are quickly filled in and have generated snippets for graphic items that I frequently use in my class materials. Notice that my trigger abbreviation is not something that I would accidentally type into a document!Īll that I have to do is type the information into the field boxesĪnd voilà, this paragraph magically appears in my document! I can then modify or add other information that specifically pertains to that student. Here is the fill-in snippet that pops up on my screen when I type the trigger abbreviation. The %filltext part of the snippet generates a form fill-in into which I type the “personalizing” information. Here is the TE snippet I use at the beginning of my letter for my introductory comments about each student. This allows me to concentrate my time on the more important individual comments that I want to make about each student. In these letters, I have several topics for which I always provide evaluation so I have generated boilerplate introductions for each of these topics that can be quickly “personalized” for each student. One of the tasks I do quite often is write recommendation letters for students applying to professional or graduate schools. Perhaps the thing I like best is the ability to create boilerplate snippets containing form fields that allow a snippet to be “personalized”. This is very different from that lovely autocorrect function that we find on smart phones and other mobile devices because you make your own library of correction words or phrases, and the computer does not “help” you out by guessing what you are trying to type! With TE the word replacement is only triggered when you actually type in the misspelled word. If you are like me, and there are some words that you commonly type incorrectly, you can use the commonly misspelled word as the trigger and have TE automatically correct the misspelling. One nice application is the automatic correction of typos. You can insert the current date and time in any format that you want to use and even do date/time math. You can add headings and salutations used in letters or emails. So what sorts of things can you do with TextExpander? You can use it to insert signatures that may contain either formatted text and/or graphic. One of the advantages of TextExpander is that Smile also makes an iOS application, TextExpander touch ($4.99), which can sync with your TextExpander library via Dropbox allowing you to access your snippets both at your desk or on the go with an iPhone or iPad. There are a number of text expansion applications out there, but the one I use on the Mac is TextExpander 4 ($34.95) from Smile Software. You assign a unique trigger abbreviation to each of your snippets.The expansion application runs in the background on your computer so that when you type the trigger abbreviation, your snippet of text is pasted into the document. A snippet can be anything from a word or a single line signature to paragraphs of boilerplate verbiage. Text expansion applications allow you to create snippets of text that you can use over and over again. Do you ever repeatedly type your name, certain phrases or terminologies, or write a lot of similar email responses? If you do, tame those beasts with a text expansion application.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |