Cool Tool: TextExpander | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by Sherri Parkins, Counselling and Accessibility Services and the Teaching & Learning Centre

in the March 2021 issue

Dear Anybody,

As I was about to embark on another marking round, I realized that I typed similar notes of encouragement, advice, and guidance in the past half hour over or over again. I wish I could repeat my thoughts or produce repeated things quickly and save some time. I need a superhero to rescue me with this task!

Signed,

Despondent Me

Dear Despondent Me,

TextExpander to the rescue!

TextExpander lets you instantly insert “snippets” of text, from your personalized TextExpander content, as you type. With TextExpander, I can type my email address with these three letters: “xem.” Some things that I frequently write, such as a sign-off above and beyond my signature in an email, can be generated by a snippet. It can include formatted text and even a picture.

Personally, I like to set up my snippets to start with the letter “X” for “expand” and then my abbreviation.

I confess to being the worst typist, so I can get my frequently mistyped/misspelled words to “autocorrect” by adding them to TextExpander. If you want to customize a snippet, for example while making comments in marking, you can include “fill in fields” within a snippet! Perhaps you want to insert a student name to make it feel more personal or perhaps there are several choices that you could use regarding something like citations.

They even have specialized snippets available for use in medical or legal documentation.

Video: TextExpander Medical 4K MASTER

TextExpander for Legal Professionals

A shared community, called public groups, provides other content-specific snippets that you can explore. One example, in addition to medical, legal, and autocorrects for common typos snippets, is the cliché corrector; this will substitute more succinct writing that students would benefit from. If you notice yourself using a phrase that might be unclear for English language learners, then you could add it to your cliché group for automatic revision.

TextExpander works across all the various platforms on my computer.

The trial period is 30 days. TextExpander has provided a coupon for Senecans to receive a 50% discount for a yearly subscription. Follow this link for details. The coupon code expires on March 31, 2021. A yearly subscription is $39.96 US. TextExpander will provide you with a monthly report on time saved. For me, it is worth it!

Signed,

Cool Tools Advocate

View the March 2021 issue of the Academic Newsletter.