TextExpander


Screen shot 2009-11-23 at 3.31.56 PM

There are a few apps out there that many people consider to be standards for Macs. Quicksilver, Secrets and Growl come to mind, but up until recently, one of them that I was resisting was TextExpander, and mostly because it wasn’t free. But I was working on an article today, and realized that I had been writing the same sentence at least 40 times since October, and if I was able to shave some time off of the process, I could get more stuff done. The answer was TextExpander.

There was a 30-day trial available, so I figured I’d start with that. A quick install later and after I watched some of the tutorial videos on their Web site, I started to setup my list, and then I tested it out.

Almost immediately, I wondered how I had ever lived without this program. Repetitive sentences that I hated to type again and again now were a few keystrokes away from being done. At first, I was saving seconds at a time, and by the time an article was done, it turned into minutes. Multiply that by a day of work, and you’ve got a pretty sizable time saving.

There are other cool uses for TextExpander as well. If you frequently misspell certain words, you can turn the program into an auto-correct, fixing your mistakes every time you make them. That’s a particularly nice feature if you’re using a program without auto-correct, or if you find yourself making mistakes frequently.

So is it worth the $30? I’m only a few days into my trial, so the verdict is still out on my end. But I think that by the end of the 30 days, I’ll be shelling out $30.

TextExpander


Kevin Whipps

Kevin Whipps is a copy editor, writer, photographer and custom car builder based in the Phoenix, Ariz. area. For the past 10 years he's been building his portfolio, mostly in the automotive publishing industry. When he's not wrenching on cars, most of his time is spent discovering new gadgets and toys, and of course, using everything Apple. Whipps is also married, and has a baby boy, Kevin Whipps Jr., coming on February 7, 2010.

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