31 Days, 31 Products: TextExpander

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Day 11: TextExpander

This post is part of a larger series where for 31 days I’m posting a story about a particular product or service I’ve come to enjoy.

TextExpander is an app that expands text. 🙂

Seriously though, TextExpander is a great system wide tool for Mac OS X that helps you type out a single word or string and then it will expand it into the full message you wanted. Some examples of my own use:

  • mike@cb.com into mike@clickablebliss.com
  • cphone into 215-555-5555
  • hphone into 215-555-4444
  • ac- into Acceptance Criteria:
  • git- into (a long gitignore useful for Xcode Projects)
  • ddate into (current date)
  • ttime into (current time)

For me TextExpander really shined while I was doing customer support for my products. I would be able to break down most email responses with answers and other messaging really quickly, while at the same time mixing in the personal side of the response and not sound like a robot. I also love that I can store my TextExpander dictionary on Dropbox and share it on all my devices. Makes every machine feel like home.

TextExpander has a free trial available. A license will cost you $44.95 and can be bought from the Smile online store.