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Textpander: An end at last to email from 'Melrin'

Peter Maurer [Textpander]

It took me about 5 seconds to fall hopelessly in love with Textpander.

Like so many wonderful things in the world (*waves to Unix apps*) it does exactly one thing: it replaces text you type with other text (or images). So, how would you use this? God, how wouldn’t you? Here’s the bullets from the Textpander page:

  • Insert standard greetings, text fragments, and signatures — including formatted text and pictures.
  • Insert the current date and time in any format you prefer.
  • Use editor-independent code templates and have Textpander position the cursor just where it needs to be.
  • Type special characters without having to launch any special characters palette.
  • Have Textpander correct typos automatically.
  • Import text snippets from other typing utilities.

This is huge for me for two reasons. First I date everything with a stamp (like 2005-09-17 07:43:53), and second, I constantly mistype my own name (“Melrin”). I automated both of these timesucks in less than a minute in Textpander, and now I’m the happiest boy in the world.1

Did I mention it’s donationware? I’ll definitely be crossing the palm of one Peter Maurer (also the developer of the wonderful Butler, it would seem).

Get this. Use this. Pay Peter.

[via Lifehacker via Slacker Manager ]


Notes

  1. Update 2005-09-17 11:00:12: Check out how Justin uses Textpander to make footnotes.

Zak's picture

I'm an inveterate user of...

I'm an inveterate user of expander software as well. I've been using TypeIt4Me, and will look into this new program. Be careful, though, because the more abbreviations you pile into it, the greater the chances you'll see something like this pop up on your screen without warning: (rapid infusion (2 min) + IV drip (5 hr, 58 min)

 
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