Text Expander: One of the neatest little apps out there for Mac, but you have to know how to use it or you never will. Trust me, I know! I have had it installed for 2 months and just started this week. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because it’s not useful, it’s because we are all creatures of habit and prone to do things the “hard way”. It’s okay, you’re not the only one one that hits the delete key a bunch of times to correct one letter 20 characters back then retype the remaining 19 characters again or go all the way up to the edit menu or use the mouse to copy & paste text instead of using the keyboard shortcuts. We all condition ourselves to to make things harder than they really are and that is why Text Expander is so valuable, if you use it. Additionally, as an added plus, it will tell you how much time you have saved, thus stroking your recently wounded human nature.

I’ll admit, when I first installed Text Expander, I had the hardest time thinking of things that I needed to “expand” and in the hustle and bustle of my regular day, I just let it collect dust for awhile. Then I came across this little MacBreak link and got all interested again and decided to play with it and, heaven forbid, actually read the instructions and tips presented by the website. When reading the instructions, I found the links to the snippits for misspellings and HTML markup shortcuts. I have been “expanding text” like crazy now and I absolutely love it! Once again, here’s another essential app for the list. I hope you enjoy it.

Here’s a snippit from the website:

Use different email signatures?

• Easily insert a customized signature with a few keystrokes. You can even include a photo or logo!

Need easy access to boilerplate paragraphs?

• Add them to your snippet library and insert them into your emails and contracts by typing a short abbreviation!

Filling out forms?

• Make it easy on yourself by adding your address, email, phone and fax numbers to your snippet library!

Keep making the same typos?

• Add common typos as triggers – TextExpander automatically replaces them with the correct spelling!
• Free! TextExpander AutoCorrect Snippet File with over 100 common misspellings!

Want to insert HTML code quickly?

• Create abbreviations for commonly-used HTML tags!
• Free! TextExpander HTML Snippet file with over 60 HTML tags and special characters!

Need to insert the current date or time?

• TextExpander comes with date and time snippets that you can format the way you want!

Check out TextExpander’s powerful features that save you time and effort!

So now that I have exposed my laziness and revealed that I download upon recommendation without actually reading the home page of the app for more info, I wanted to share my recent “Essential App” with you. But here’s my ongoing question: What are your snippits and how can I get my greasy mitts on them? I’m a snippit-a-holic now. Must… have… more… snippits! Send me your snippits!