9 Interesting Ways to Use TextExpander You Might Not Have Thought About

There are so many interesting ways to use TextExpander! Today, we challenged ourselves to find some of the less-mentioned ways our community members use this knowledge activation tool. We’ve found examples that made us think and even some that made us laugh!

For beginners, we have plenty of resources to help you cover the essentials in the TextExpander Learning Center and here on the blog. We have a whole blog category of TextExpander tips, including what text expansion is, how to reach inbox zero with TextExpander snippets, some commonly missed benefits of TextExpander and plenty more. If you’re ready for some novel suggestions from our community, though, this one’s for you!

A tip for faculty who dislike rewriting the same feedback over and over on papers. Save yourself time by using @TextExpander to insert snippets of text. Write up lengthier explanations, add links, and give examples once and use abbreviations to insert the text. #AcademicChatter
— Varaxy Yi, Ph.D. (@Varaxy) August 11, 2020

Use TextExpander to Create Snippets To Give Feedback More Easily

Chances are, if you’re a leader or an academic like this TextExpander community member, you use a lot of the same feedback over and over. Why not cut back on that redundant typing by creating snippets that contain your key phrases? It’s totally up to you how advanced you want these snippets to be. Keep it simple with basic snippets, or add more layers by creating templates with fill-in fields, multiple-choice options, and more.

Start out by going back through your recent feedback reports or communications and copying and pasting your most used terms. Then, as you write new ones, pay attention to any more phrases that could be added quickly to a snippet. Look out for any resources you commonly send links to and add those to your library too.

Create Snippets For Your Bio

You’d be surprised by how often you introduce yourself on the daily! Save yourself valuable time by creating a snippet with a bio that summarizes yourself and/or your work, as suggested in this podcast interview. We loved how they discussed creating multiple bios based on the context they’ll be used in, so it’s up to you if you create one customizable snippet or split them into several.

This one can be helpful in so many contexts, not just if you’re being interviewed as the episode mentions. You could create bios to introduce yourself to new team members, to pitch your business to new customers, and for potential employers while on a job hunt. The next time you find yourself having to tell someone about yourself, be sure to create a snippet to answer that question in future.

Automatically Convert your Spellings Between British and American English

This tip appeared a couple years ago on our blog, but we wanted to highlight it again in case you’ve yet to dive that far back in our archives. If you’re a British writer writing for the US or vice versa, these Public Groups could be a lifesaver! They’re configured so that any time you accidentally type a British spelling, the snippet will automatically convert it to the American English spelling, or the inverse for the American to British English Public Group.

Only writing a one-off article? No problem. It’s super simple to subscribe to a Public Group for the time you need it, then just click “Unsubscribe” as soon as you’ve finished.

Say Hello In Your Most Encountered Languages

Sticking with an international theme, why not set up some snippets to say hello in your customers’ or colleagues’ native languages? The world’s growing ever more connected, and being able to express yourself in another language can make an excellent impression. Save yourself any worries about spelling wrongly each time by creating snippets with keyphrases to help you communicate.

Create Multiple Responses From Just One Snippet

Productivity consultant Paul Minors does a great job of highlighting this idea in his YouTube video on all the ways he uses TextExpander. He mentions that for email replies, often he sets up just one snippet that contains multiple options for him to choose from as his reply. If you’re someone who loves to streamline your processes down to the essentials, this is a great example of using the Optional Selection feature in our Fill-ins area to maximum effect. He shows you an example at around 8:30 in his video.

Generate Lorem Ipsum Effortlessly

This one is also from Paul’s video above and is a staple for any designers reading this! If you are used to heading to your search bar and finding Lorem Ipsum generators to copy and paste from, this one’s for you. Simply create a snippet containing a paragraph of Lorem Ipsum to populate mockups with, or set up multiples for a single sentence, single paragraph, or larger block of text depending on what you use.

Pro tip: Current favorite @TextExpander snippet I’m using — cx —Cancelled. Set the case sensitivity to ‘Adapt to case’ so that typing cx will give you cancelled and Cx will give you Cancelled. And for really urgent cancellations, use CX and you’ll get CANCELLED!
— MacTipsDaily  (@MacTipsDaily) March 20, 2020

Make Announcing Cancelations Easier

We love this tip from one of our users on Twitter, as it’s so true that cancelations just happen. We’ve seen a lot more events and plans go awry since 2020, so if you find yourself making the announcement as a planner or leader on a regular basis, this is your cue to set those snippets up!

What about politely declining events? The higher you go in your industry, the more event invitations you’ll receive. Set up a couple for variety and to cater to specific events. It’s a great touch to send a personal reply, even if it is to say you’re afraid you can’t come.

More: Templates for Cancel Interview Email

Add Your Own Personal “Catchphrases”

We’re using the word “catchphrases” here, but what we mean is your go-to daily expressions. This is anything you find yourself saying on repeat in your general conversations. Maybe it’s “Let me know by _____”, or, “Thank you so much for your hard work.”

If there’s anything that’s wordy to type but that you catch yourself saying on the regular, create a snippet! Save yourself some time and typing.

Quick calendar #productivity tip: My wife and I use a shared calendar. To distinguish who will attend a given event, we’ve started adding emoji avatars. This works particularly well for mundane stuff. And thanks to @TextExpander snippets, adding the emoji is near-zero effort. pic.twitter.com/bwlaWNjbW3
— Jochen Wolters 🇺🇸 | 💉💉💉 (@jochenWolters) June 12, 2018

Use TextExpander to Organize Your Shared Calendars More Easily

Another gem of a tip found on Twitter! So many of us have shared calendars with our colleagues, partners, and families. What’s the quickest way to separate whose events are whose? Emoji snippets, of course! The Emoji Cheat Sheet is our most popular Public Group for emojis and this has to be one of its most creative uses.

Our Tweeter here uses the snippets :man: 👨 and :woman: 👩 to differentiate between events for himself or his wife. What about assigning different colored heart emojis to your close friends or team at work? So simple, but so effective.

Takeaways

Use TextExpander to create a bio snippet, or series of snippets, to make introductions easy

Subscribe to our Public Groups to convert your British spellings into their American equivalents or vice versa

Create snippets with greetings in the languages you engage with most to avoid worries about misspellings

Create multiple responses to emails in just one snippet with our Optional Selection feature

Generate Lorem Ipsum without needing to copy and paste anew every time

Build a quick snippet to announce cancelations if you’re the planner or leader of events

Add your own personal catchphrases that you use regularly

Use our Emoji Cheat Sheet Public Group to organize shared calendars

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