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Tag Archives: text expansion

October 8, 2015 by Jason B. Jones

Automating Writing with TextExpander Scripts

TextExpander is ~~a slightly terrifying key logger~~ a well-designed, intensely useful app for Mac & iOS that does exactly what it says on the tin: it takes little snippets of text and blows them up into arbitrarily longer ones. Ryan wrote about it 5 years (!?!) ago, and George followed up with a post about using it for grading.

The real power of TextExpander comes into focus when you start to reflect on just how many things are text. For example, scripts are just text.

Helmut Hauser, who teaches…

May 15, 2014 by Jason B. Jones

Create Calendar Templates On Your iOS Device with Calendar Paste

Any calendar app worth the name can probably handle at least two kinds of events pretty easily: one-off meetings, and regularly recurring meetings. But into any academic life, there’s at least one other kind of meeting that’s also recognizable: the appointment or meeting that happens with some frequency, but not on a set schedule.

For example, department meetings sometimes wander around the calendar in order to be available to as many faculty members as possible. Committee meetings are someti…

January 6, 2014 by Brian Croxall

Ten Tips for Tweeting at Conferences

It’s no surprise that we here at ProfHacker like Twitter. We’ve covered how to start tweeting (and why you might want to) and practical advice for teaching with Twitter. I’ve found Twitter to be a tremendous boon to developing my professional networks and helping me stay on top of what’s happening in my fields of scholarship. But there’s one place where where Twitter perhaps ends up being more valuable for me than other place: at conferences.

Tweeting at conferences is a great way to share what …

May 2, 2013 by Mark Sample

Text Expansion, Macros, and More with AutoHotkey for Windows

Text expansion generally refers to the way a few typed letters can expand into entire words, sentences, or even paragraphs. It’s a simple idea but an incredible time-saver.

We’ve talked about text expansion tools before on ProfHacker, but we’ve tended to focus on the Mac. What about text expansion for Windows? I’d like to recommend AutoHotkey, a powerful, open-source and free scripting tool that handles text expansion but also so much more. I’ve been using AutoHotkey for years, and it’s beco…

September 19, 2012 by Brian Croxall

New (and Simple) Twists on Text Expansion

One of the great things about writing for ProfHacker is that I get to learn about new tools from my fellow bloggers that end up saving me a lot of time. That’s been the case with text expansion software. In short, text expansion tools allow you to type small bits of text (a “snippet”) and have them automatically replaced automatically by pre-determined chunks of text. Instead of typing out an entire signature at the end of an email, in other words, I can just type “blc” and my standard signatur…

November 9, 2011 by Jason B. Jones

Using Text Expansion for Mobile E-mail

This week, I was at an event on faculty-student boundaries and expectations in the age of social media and smartphones. There were several interesting points of discussion–most people (students and faculty) seemed to agree that it’s a little weird for faculty to ‘friend’ students first; what variables go into “how quickly should someone respond to an e-mail,” etc. Inevitably, someone complained about writing. If students aren’t writing rude messages, they’re introducing all kinds of text-mess…

September 23, 2010 by George Williams

Using Text-Expansion Software to Respond to Student Writing

I’ve recently started using text expansion software to improve the written feedback I provide to my students with regard to their writing, and it’s made a huge difference. Let me explain.

I teach students how to write. It’s a huge part of my job, and I love it…for the most part. I love talking with students about their writing. I love looking at their drafts and giving them feedback. I love reading what they write. One thing I don’t love, however, is writing up my comments about their writing, c…

May 6, 2010 by Ryan Cordell

Smarter Typing Through Text Expansion

text expander In last Friday’s post on developing an electronic communication policy, Ethan mentioned that he was considering adopting SmileOnMyMac’s TextExpander to respond quickly to student emails. This was a fortuitous (dare I say well-planned?) comment, as I was working on this post even as I read his article. TextExpander has become such an integral (and even subconscious) part of my routine that, quite honestly, I often forget it’s not a part of my computer’s operating system.

There are quite a few tex…

Jason B. Jones

@jbj

Jason B. Jones is Director of Educational Technology at Trinity College.

George H. Williams

@GeorgeOnline

George H. Williams is an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

Amy Cavender

@acavender

Amy Cavender is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, and Associate Professor of Political Science and interim Director of the Center for Academic Innovation at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Ryan Cordell

@ryancordell

Ryan Cordell is Assistant Professor of English at Northeastern University.

Brian Croxall

@briancroxall

Brian Croxall is the Digital Humanities Strategist at Emory University's Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC) and Lecturer of English.

Erin E. Templeton

@eetempleton

Erin E. Templeton is the Anne Morrison Chapman Distinguished Professor of International Study and an associate professor of English at Converse College.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick

@kfitz

Kathleen Fitzpatrick is director of scholarly communication of the Modern Language Association and Visiting Research Professor of English at New York University.

Natalie M. Houston

nmhouston

Natalie M. Houston is an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a personal productivity coach for academics and professionals.