What is a text expander? And why should I use one?

Time is limited. Every day has only 24 hours. In an ideal world, we sleep eight hours per day which leaves us with 16 hours for work and private life. In these 16 hours, we usually want to do chores and tasks as efficiently as possible so that we gain more free time. It’s all about increasing productivity nowadays.

What is a text expander?

A Text expander, like Typinator, replaces short abbreviations with longer phrases, sentences, images, and more.

Have you ever typed an abbreviation like “yw” or “thx” to save time but then the recipient didn’t understand the message? A text expander allows you to write words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs by typing just a few abbreviations. It then automatically expands your abbreviations to whichever text you defined.

Coming back to our defined abbreviations, you type “yw” or “thx” and the tool writes “you’re welcome” or “thank you” for example. You could even define that every time you write “thx” the tool expands your shortcut to “Thank you very much. Have a nice day.”

Easy as pie, right? And so useful! But this is not the only use case for a text expander tool.

How does a text expander tool help me boost productivity?

We have to write tedious texts repeatedly, day by day, or even many times per day. Just think about how many times you write your first name, last name, address, or email somewhere. These repetitive tasks take time—time we could easily save for more important (or fun!) things.

That’s where a text expander comes in handy. A text expander tool is useful for completing repetitive tasks quickly and checking spelling mistakes automatically. Sounds too good to be true?

It’s not! Text expanders do exactly that—and so much more.

Every day, we write countless messages and emails, fill out forms, or write other documents, most of them with recurrent text blocks.

These tasks are typically boring and time-consuming.

They can include tasks such as sending offers, confirming appointments, sending thank-you messages, or providing explanations. The same is true for long, complex names or URLs you repeatedly have to write, as many mistakes and typos can creep in. That’s where these tools will help you.

The only thing you need to do to increase your writing efficiency—and quality—is to write your own shortcuts for recurring tasks or text blocks. You can use our prefilled sets and features like auto-correction to fix typos on the fly.

Start typing your abbreviations and they automatically expanded to the previously defined boilerplate text.

Imagine how much more pleasant and stress-free work could be! A small tool with big effects.

A text expander tool can do more than just expand text. You can add images, use placeholders to select text options, and personalize content with names or prices.

Need more examples? Have a look at our Typinator: Learn center.

Who benefits from a text expander?

The short answer is: everyone. Because you can also use it for so much more than business topics. But let’s dive a bit deeper here ...

Office workers (of any kind)

As soon as you’re using a laptop or computer to do your daily work, you’ll love a text expander tool. Defining shortcuts for repetitive paragraphs in emails not only minimizes the time needed to write them but also helps avoid any typos or misspellings.

Furthermore, text expanders can carry out keyboard shortcuts—an incredibly helpful task that simplifies work on any digital device. Text expander tools also facilitate easier quoting, particularly when you need to reuse the same phrases repeatedly. Create a snippet for these sentences. Then, by typing a short letter combination, you can insert the whole quote easily.

Students & programmers

As a student you benefit from text expander tools not only when writing emails (hello time saver, bye-bye typos!) but for any written assignment. Customize your snippets and use the auto-correction feature to make sure you deliver high-quality texts.

Programmers and others who work with programming languages can use a text expander tool to quickly write commonly used code snippets. Avoid tiny typos that might make your applications crash.

Customer relationship managers

Customer relationship managers know how tedious it is to write the exact same emails, messages, sentences and paragraphs over and over again. Say goodbye to typing “Please refer to our FAQ section” a hundred times per day.

Do you also sometimes need to search for old emails to find the answer for a question? Stop doing this. Create yourself a snippet and reuse it.

As a consequence, text expanders help you save time. You might need to invest a little time at the beginning to create the ideal shortcuts for your answers, phrases, and images. Explore the form elements to fill out variable parts while using the expansion. But once you’ve done that, your productivity and efficiency will increase times ten.

Working in a team? Share sets of custom abbreviations with your entire team to ensure everybody is writing in the same corporate language!

Text expanders in a nutshell

In short, text expanders help you save time, they take over your tiresome work, thereby allowing you to focus on the important things. These tools have numerous features that can significantly enhance your daily work life. That is why they are widely used in offices across the globe.

Want to join the club? Or need to see it with your own eyes to be convinced? Try out Typinator for free now!