Text Shortcut

Text shortcut is a short text (usually up to six characters long) that user defines to start (expand) desired macro. (Both macro and text shortcut user specifies in the items settings dialog box.) Here is how it works:

1. Create new item or edit some of the existing items. Specify the text shortcut in the "Text Shortcut" field of the items settings dialog window. Also specify your macro (it can be just a text like "Hello, this is my first 'macro'.) in the "Macro" field of the same window and close the dialog window by pressing OK.
2. Now go to some word editor or e-mail client (or other Windows application where you can type text) and type the text shortcut. Note that you have to type the text shortcut right without any mistyping. If you mistype you can repair the text shortcut using "back space" key and retyping the wrong part of the text shortcut.
3. When the text shortcut is typped-in press space bar. Now the text shortcut you have typped is deleted and replaced by the text you have defined in the macro.

This is basic scenario how the text shortcuts work. There are several options you can use to modify the text shortcut behavior :

- You can use "Auto-expand" option (available in item settings dialog box) to cause the macro to be started without necessity to press space bar after the text shortcut is typped in. This option causes that the macro is started when the last character of the text shortcut is typped in.
- You can use "Can be part of word" option (available in item settings dialog box) to tell the program that the text shortcut can be a part of a longer text. If this option is checked then, for example, the text shortcut "soft" is expanded when user types "Microsoft ".
- If user wants to use a key other than space bar to trigger text shortcut expansion then he/she can define it in the main settings window.

Text shortcut has these features:

- Is case-sensitive (for example, "sct" is different than "Sct").
- Doesn't have to be unique. If there are more items with the same text shortcuts the list of all the items with this text shortcut is shown on expand.
- Can contain national characters (like ë, ü, á, õ, etc.).
- Can contain NumPad keys.

Text shortcuts have some limitations that user needs to keep in mind when creating new items:

- Text shortcut cannot contain space bar (and the key defined to expand text shortcut if it is different from the space bar).
- Text shortcut cannot contain any of the characters defined in the "Word-breaking characters" field of the main settings window.

There are also some recommendations:

- The text shortcut should be as short as possible (from three to six characters).
- The text shortcut should be different from regularly used words (for example, "the" is very bad text shortcut).

Related topics: Macro | Items Settings | Main Settings