![]() Dan has set up a snippet for site:/kb/ (with a space at the end) and given it the abbreviation kbs (for Knowledge Base Search). For example, we search Apple’s Support site ( /kb/) frequently enough that it makes sense to have a shortcut for this search. You can use this trick along with a text-expansion utility to create site-search shortcuts. As long as the fields are in the correct order, that snippet will let you enter all the information with just a few keypresses.įaster site searching If you frequently search a specific website, you may know that you can use Google to search just that site using the syntax site. It turns out that TextExpander and TypeIt4Me allow you to include tab characters within snippets, so you can set up a snippet in the format name, tab, street address, tab, city, tab, zip code, tab, phone number. If you find yourself often filling out forms with, say, your name, address, and phone number, you’ll generally find that these forms have the same number of fields. (Note that you probably don’t want to use these snippets on a laptop that you travel with, or a public computer, as anyone could read your credit card number by opening the text-expansion program.) You can set up a snippet for each of your credit cards and use those snippets to paste your credit-card numbers on demand-it’s a lot easier to remember ccamex (for an American Express card) or ccmc (for MasterCard) than each card’s number. Online shopping shortcuts Mac users can use Safari’s auto-fill feature or 1Password to automatically fill credit-card numbers and addresses when shopping online, but some sites actively prevent these tools from working-plus there are times you may need to provide that information in other apps. In TypeIt4Me, you open the program and click the New Clipping (+) icon then you enter an abbreviation in the left-hand column and the expansion text in the right-hand side of the window. You can also name your abbreviation (for example, Home Address) to make it easier to find in TextExpander’s lists. The two programs are quite similar, and each uses a similar procedure for setting up abbreviations: In TextExpander, you open the program’s main window and click on the New Snippet (+) button then you enter your full text in the large section of the right-hand pane, and your abbreviation at the bottom-right of the window. ![]() Two of our favorite such utilities are Smile’s $35 TextExpander for Mac ( ) and Ettore Software’s $27 TypeIt4Me ( ). In this way, a text-expansion utility can save you significant time and effort. While the keystrokes these abbreviations save may not seem like much on their own, the hundreds-or even thousands-of keystrokes you avoid add up every day. When Dan types addy, his utility immediately replaces it with his home address. For example, when we type mw, our text-expansion utilities expand those two letters to Macworld, saving a few keystrokes each time. Snippets can be words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or even bits of code. When you type one of these abbreviations, the utility automatically replaces it with the respective full text. Text-expansion utilities let you create abbreviations-also called clippings or snippets-for frequently typed text.
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