Why Switch to Typinator?

Why I switched from TextExpander to Typinator

I recently moved from TextExpander to Typinator. I made this choice as a part of my “August of Automation” exploration of ways to use automation more effectively - and more affordably in my life. TextExpander offers a good product, but at a price that doesn’t match the value I obtain from it. In contrast, Typinator fits my needs better and at a very affordable price. In the time that I’ve been using Typinator, I also find it much more reliable than TextExpander was.

Why Switch to Typinator?

• efficient
• reliable
• user-friendly
• extensive customization
• advanced
• productive
• stable
• versatile
• updated
• supported

The first and biggest reason I switched to Typinator is cost. Typinator beats TextExpander here on a few fronts. First of all, the price for a subscription to TextExpander for just one year is more than the Typinator license. I’ve likely already paid TextExpander 20 times what I will pay ergonis for Typinator licenses over my lifetime assuming I choose to upgrade to major new versions every time they come out. TextExpander does offer features that Typinator doesn’t natively offer (like team versions and a mobile version), but I really didn’t use those features.

Second, in my testing, I’ve found Typinator to be more reliable in at least two ways. First, typinator starts reliably every time my device starts and it is always running. TextExpander would sometimes just stop working and I’d have to restart the app. I’ve also found a specific feature that works far more reliably which is inserting images that are saved as a part of an expansion. I teach online classes and like to add photos and graphics to some of my posts. Since many of these are posts I use over and over again with minor modifications, I’ve saved them as expansions. With TextExpander, I had to constantly rescale these images after expansion. With Typinator, I’ve not had to do that.

Third, Typinator abbreviation sets offer a couple of expansion options that TextExpander doesn’t offer including the ability to have a sound that triggers with each Abbreviation Set and the ability to add prefixes or suffixes. While I was mostly happy with using prefixes, I had a group that made more sense to my brain to have a suffix rather than a prefix. This meant I had to type the suffix as a part of the trigger for that snippet every single time. It’s not a big deal, but now that set of abbreviations simply has a suffix instead of a prefix. Sounds have already kept a couple of errors from happening. I try to keep my expansion triggers unique so as not to have conflicts. However, it has happened a couple of times where I’ve expanded the wrong abbreviation and I immediately realized it rather than typing along and then looking up 10 or 15 seconds later only to realize I had gibberish on the screen.

Finally, the ability to add comments inline to a snippet is a BIG deal for me. Interestingly, as I was writing this, I finally thought to Google if you could add comments into TextExpander and you can. However, it’s not easily discoverable which makes it harder to remember and to use. I think that points to a final “why switch” in my book. Typinator is very easy to use while also very powerful. I’ve found TextExpander to be a little overly complicated to figure out from time to time. My learning curve has been quicker in Typinator.

As I made my move to Typinator, I chose to make the move manually - even though Typinator offers an excellent Import feature to bring over TextExpander snippets. I chose to make the move manually to clean up many unused snippets that had been hanging around in my library as well as to improve upon some of my most used snippets. I’m also going to make use of the Statistics feature in Typinator to keep my Abbreviation Sets cleaned up since I can quickly turn on statistics and see at a glance which expansions I use most often and when the last time was that I used an expansion.

What I’ve Learned

I’ve learned several things about both how Typinator works as well as how to build out and refine my own expansions so I thought I’d share a few of those with you.

Build Abbreviation Sets By Type

In my current snippet library, I had a large number of ways I grouped snippets together. In the move to Typinator, I chose to group snippets into Abbreviation Sets by type. I have a set of snippets for all my different email addresses. (Why do we have so many different email addresses?) I have a set of snippets for information about my company, Monarch Strategies LLC. I have a set of snippets for all of the different Zoom links I use regularly. Grouping these by type allows me to access them easily with a common prefix. I use “z;” for Zoom links and info and “e;” for emails and “ms;” for company snippets.

Build out a Personal Media Kit

One of the abbreviation sets I’m most excited about is an email version of my media kit. When I am asked to speak at an event or on a podcast, the team organizing the event or podcast, will often ask for things like a bio, photos, etc. I will send them the link to my media kit as a reference, but I also respond to their specific asks in the email. So, I have a set of snippets for my:

• company description
• short bio
• long bio
• several photos
• several versions of my company logo
• links to all of my different social media
• links to allow someone to download my curriculum vitae

I’ve also built a single snippet for all my social media links for the company. Triggering “ms;soc” will pull the four snippets for LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all in one quick package. If I choose to add BlueSky, Mastadon, or YouTube links - or another social - for my company at a later date, I can easily add in both an individual expansion for that social as well as add that expansion to my compiled group.

With these, I can quickly respond in a custom manner to requests for information. I used the ability to add a description to snippets to remind myself where the shared curriculum vitae file is stored in Google Drive. In just a month or so of using these snippets, I’ve already added the What We Do and the vitae. I know I’ll continue adding to this over time.

Working on building this has also pointed out to me a place where Typinator outshines TextExpander - dragging and dropping snippets between sets. For example, the company description started out in my Monarch Strategies LLC set. However, I realized that the vast majority of time I’ll be using it in the context of my Media Kit set. In TextExpander, I could drag and drop between groups, but I had to manually reset the prefix for any item drug to a group from another group. In Typinator, if you drag something from one set to another, the prefix automatically changes as long as prefixes are set at the set level. This saves me so much time and hassle!

Build “form letters” with comments

One of the other features that quickly drew me to Typinator was the ability to add comments to my snippets. I have built five or six pretty complex “form” responses that include a lot of different boilerplate text. For example, I built a template for a lesson for one of the institutions I teach for.

This is what the snippet looks like:

And this is what I’m prompted with when I run the snippet.
While this snippet is fairly simple and straightforward, I love that I can add comments directly into my snippets to help me iterate on and improve them in the future.

Managing Application Exceptions

The way Typinator handles applications where you don’t want a snippet to activate is more easily managed in Typinator than in TextExpander. In TextExpander, if you have a snippet group that you do not want to run in a specific application then you have to set that at the snippet group level. So, let’s say I have a two different groups of snippets that for some reason I don’t want to run in Microsoft Word, I have to go into each of those two groups and edit the applications where that group will not be allowed to run. However, in Typinator, you manage this at the system level and by application. This is a tiny thing but it works so much better for how my brain works.

If you’re on the fence about switching, take the leap. Typinator is more affordable, reliable, and user-friendly, with features like inline comments and seamless snippet organization that truly help your work.