The iPhone and iPad Blog by Simon

Ever wondered what could you do to save time when entering text on the iOS keyword?

Without apps, you have to spell out whole phrases or words. What if you can type in shortcuts and something converts and expands these shortcuts into frequently-used text?

TextExpander 3 does exactly that.

It’s an app that inserts variable information like the contents of the clipboard, current date, or moving the curser into an expanded snippet. The fill-in field tells the app to pause while expanding the snippet so that you can fill the variable information yourself. And the app’s macros allow you to create powerful snippets.

How to use TextExpander 3 for iOS 8

If you regularly type on our iPhone, you no doubt type your name, certain phrases and terminologies, repeatedly. You may even be writing the same email responses. Instead of repeatedly entering the text, you can create short abbreviations that paste and trigger assigned text.

So for example if you want to type your name (John for example), you simply have to type ‘jn’, and TextExpander will replace it with the whole name: John. You can create hundreds of expansions for abbreviations. And for some abbreviations, you can put a punctuation mark in front of a common associated word to make it easy to remember.

The snippet creation process is based on an ‘insert’ menu that is placed alongside the ‘format’ option, in the copy & paste menu. The insert menu can be used to manage macros for cursor position and selection, fill-in snippets, date/time math, date, time, snippets and clipboard.

TextExpander snippets can be used in over 60 apps with integrated support, including names like Dispatch, Fantastical 2, Launch Center Pro, TaskAgent and Tap Forms. With advanced snippets you can even use fill-in-the-blanks to breeze through form letters.

TextExpander 3 is also compatible with Dropbox, so snippets can be synced with Mac. And keyboards are included for multiple languages and different types of layouts like QWERTY and AZERTY are also supported.

Final thoughts

The app does not come cheap, but provides everything you need to make typing faster and less cluttered on an iDevice. Coupled with the fact that it has features supported in multiple applications, it is a great choice for iOS typists.

You can download TextExpander 3 for $4.99 from the App Store. Let us know if you give it a try and feel free to leave comments.

This article, TextExpander 3: Expand Custom Abbreviations Into Text Snippets, was originally published at simonblog.com.

The post TextExpander 3: Expand Custom Abbreviations Into Text Snippets appeared first on The iPhone and iPad Blog.