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Help: Expanding Snippets

Expand immediately vs. using delimiters

Under TextExpander > Preferences > Expansion, you can set when TextExpander expands a snippet.

TextExpander can expand your snippets immediately when you type the abbreviations. Many users prefer this mode because it feels faster and more seamless. However, you need to choose abbreviations that would not appear in your normal typing. For example, "sig" is a poor abbreviation when using "Expand immediately", because your snippet will be expanded every time you want to type the word "sign" or "signal".

If you use delimiters, you have more flexibility with abbreviations. No expansion occurs until you press a delimiter key, indicating that you want the abbreviation to be expanded. For example, you could use "sig" to enter your signature if you were using delimiters. Your signature snippet would not be expanded until you pressed a specified delimiter after typing "sig".

By default, space, tab, return and esc keys are designated delimiters, but you can use any of a large group of characters as a delimiter. Go to TextExpander > Preferences > Expansion and click on the Set Delimiters... to see all your choices.

Suggest matching abbreviations

If you have a large snippet library, or you have trouble remembering your abbreviations, you will find the abbreviation matching suggestions useful. To invoke this feature, you need to set a hotkey.

  1. Go to TextExpander > Preferences > Hotkeys.
  2. Click Push to set Hotkey next to Suggest Matching Abbreviations.
  3. Press a key combination that includes Command, Control, Option and/or Shift plus any letter or number to set your hotkey; e.g. Control + s.

When you want matching abbreviations to be suggested, type a few letters of the abbreviation or of the snippet, and then press your assigned hotkey combination. Matching abbreviations are then displayed in a scrolling window. Use the arrow keys to move up and down the list, and press Return when the desired snippet is selected to expand it. You can also click on the desired snippet to expand it.

Enable/Disable TextExpander

Occasionally, you might want to disable TextExpander temporarily, when you don't want your snippet expansions to occur. You can do this by clicking on the TextExpander icon in the menu and then clicking Disable Expansion. To enable TextExpander again, click again on the TextExpander menu bar icon and then click Enable Expansion.

You can also accomplish this easily by assigning a hotkey for Enable/Disable TextExpander.

  1. Go to TextExpander > Preferences > Hotkeys.
  2. Click Push to set Hotkey next to Enable/Disable TextExpander.
  3. Press a key combination that includes Command, Control, Option and/or Shift plus any letter or number to set your hotkey; e.g. Control + d.

TextExpander will remember your assigned hotkey combination. You can use it to toggle TextExpander on and off.

 

 

 
 
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