TextExpander

Posted by on May 20, 2012 in Software | No Comments
TextExpander

One of my go-to tools for rapid coding html is an application for the Mac called TextExpander. TextExpander is from a company called Smile Software that essentially is an app that lets you build macros to use across all applications on your computer.

A macro is basically a series of keys that when typed release a larger block of text. So if I type something like ddate (yes with 2 d’s) on my computer – TextExpander is always listening and will replace it with a format of todays date. So I get May 19, 2012 typed out for me without having to look it up.

This is great for email signatures, form letters, anything that will save you time typing.

One thing I realized a few years ago was that this would be great for HTML. I can make a macro for a tag and not only will TextExpander expand this to the full tag, but it will drop the cursor between the two tags thus making it very handy for rapidly making html.

So when I type ;bold (my html macros always start with a semicolon so I won’t have a problem typing them accidentally) I get with the cursor right in the middle to continue typing.

I’ve created a video here so you can see exactly how I use TextExpander and how fast it is.

Please note this video is a few years old when the company was called “Smile on my Mac”. Its now just Smile.