For TextExpander users, it’ll be no surprise that we’re passionate about helping you learn to type fast! Many of our customers find us because they feel they’ve done all they can to learn typing and don’t think they can improve their typing speed any further. You might have thought plenty about how to type faster, but what about using TextExpander to type less?
- The average person can type around 40 words per minute.
- The average person reads around 300 words per minute.
If you’re looking for ways to type faster and better your typing accuracy, these TextExpander tips are for you!
Always Add Your Typos To TextExpander
One thing that can slow down your typing speed is going back to correct mistakes. TextExpander can boost your typing accuracy and improve your typing speed with our handy keyboard shortcuts. Next time you make a mistake, highlight it, copy it, then hit Control + Option + T to create a Snippet with the mistake you just made. Press Command (Mac)/Control (Microsoft) + V in the Abbreviation section to enter your typo, and add the correct spelling in the Snippet section to help your typing speed soar.
Set Up Snippets To Speed Up Typing Names
This idea comes from our “Small Snippets, Big Time Savings” post that contains many more Snippet suggestions. We love this idea because it’s fairly common and distressing to realize you’ve been typing someone’s name wrong. The beauty of TextExpander Snippets is that you only need to copy and paste a name into a Snippet once to ensure you’ll never worry about correcting it again.
The time you need to type colleagues’ and family members’ names can add up, so why not create some Snippets for the people you mention most frequently? Don’t forget to add place names and brand names too. All of us at TextExpander have a Snippet that expands our business name, as well as ones that correct “textexpander” or “Textexpander.” We definitely recommend this to other brands with capital letters mid-word!
Create Snippet Templates For Everything You Type Repeatedly
If there’s one thing that’ll help you type faster, it’s no longer needing to retype the same content on repeat. Instead, have a short analysis session where you make a list of the documents you regularly create, such as:
- Create templates for every email you send frequently. This could be anything from “Welcome to the team” or “Here’s how to tackle this issue.”
- Make Snippets for a meeting agenda and minutes or several for the most common meetings you host.
- Create Snippets to format the documents you regularly make, like social media posts or monthly analytic reports.
Add Your “Catchphrases” To TextExpander
This idea is from our post on interesting ways to use TextExpander, which we recommend for more Snippet suggestions to help you type faster! We all have specific phrases we say daily, like “I’d love to help” or “Thank you so much for your hard work.” The next time you type one, highlight it and press Command/Control + C to copy, then Control + Option + C to create a Snippet with the text you’ve copied. We’ve shown you how you can use Snippets in conjunction with ClickUp and Asana, if you’d like to see some work “catchphrases” in action!
Make Your Snippets More Advanced With Fill-ins
If you’ve covered the basics of Snippets but have yet to experiment with Fill-ins yet, your productivity is about to skyrocket. We covered them a little in this post, but there are four types of Fill-ins you can add to a TextExpander Snippet:
- A Single Line Field: this is a small textbox you could use to fill in a person’s name every time you use an email template Snippet.
- A Multi Line Field: this is a larger textbox that you could use for addresses or personal comments on a report.
- Optional Section: this lets you tick or untick any section within a Snippet, if it’s copy you don’t need every time.
- Pop Up Menu: this lets a window appear with the options you create, so that you can select from a few pre-made choices.
We love Fill-ins because they save time as you type, as well as time making and remembering separate Snippets and their abbreviations.
Use Inline Search If You’re Stuck
When we’ve only recently set up a Snippet, it’s natural to forget the abbreviation the first couple of times you use it. Save time typing by hitting Command/Control + Space to bring up the Inline Search window, where you can type anything you know will help find your Snippet to help you remember.
Join Our Public Groups For Pre-Made Snippets
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Don’t forget that we have plenty of Public Groups you can join to improve your typing speed without even having to make Snippets of your own. Some of the most popular ones are:
- Autocorrect – English: correct common typos in English.
- Symbols: useful symbol characters that are hard to find on your keyboard.
- Emoji Cheat Sheet: use the same Emoji shortcuts as Slack, Campfire, GitHub, Basecamp, etc., anywhere you can type.
- HTML & CSS: shortcuts for writing HTML and CSS.
- Contractions- English (US): Autocorrection for US English contractions that do not spell other words without the apostrophe (i.e. she’d).
- Accented Words: Converts common words, when typed without accents, to their accented equivalents. Time for a matinée!
Takeaways
- Lots of us want to learn to type faster, but TextExpander can help you type less.
- Boost your typing accuracy and improve your typing speed by making Snippets with your typos. Use the keyboard shortcut Control + Option + T to start a Snippet even quicker.
- Create Snippets for the names of people, places, and brands you refer to regularly.
- Use TextExpander to make templates for documents you often create, such as meeting agendas, minutes, or monthly analytics reports.
- Instead of making lots of Snippets, use Fill-in fields to adapt a more advanced Snippet every time you use it.
- Try our Inline Search feature when you struggle to remember a new abbreviation.
- Check out our Public Groups for lots of pre-made Snippets to expand your library and help you type faster.
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