Typing faster will obviously enable us to get more words on the page each day. Text expansion can increase an average typing speed with limited up front effort. Using it productively takes a little practice, but the basic techniques are simple and rewarding to use.
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Typing faster with text expansions
Ahhh, so you’re addicted to typing faster with text expansion. Tis a worthy pursuit. Follow and I shall reveal yet more secrets unto you.
Expanding on a previous article about keyboard shorthand using AutoCorrect, we share additional ideas and extensions for leveraging AutoCorrect as well as other text expansion tools to write faster.
If you’re new to text expansion …
If this is your first encounter with text expansion. It’s kind of like modern keyboard shorthand. While we should practice our typing, using text expansion takes less work is easier than improving your raw typing speed.
Text expansion speeds up typing common text blocks, often called “snippets,” and relieves the tedium of repeatedly typing the same long or even some short form text. Just tap fewer keys. How hard can that be?
Word positions AutoCorrect as a spell correction tool (it’s in the name), but it easily doubles as a productivity booster. Text expansion goes well beyond just spell correction. Many users have email templates, whole legal documents, etc. Although those uses are outside the scope of today’s article, we can leverage text expansion for many common text snippets for authors. A few idiosyncrasies exist, but I’ve used them regularly to save hours of typing time and tedium.
Check out the introductory article …
If you’re new to text expansion, check out the first article or this previous video on the topic before you try to tackle today's tips. Some of them may seem excessive unless you've practiced the basics. I wouldn’t want to turn anyone off a good productivity tool that takes only a little effort to utilize all because the examples below may look a little complicated.
Text expansion tools
I write in Microsoft Word, so my main text expansion tool is just plain old AutoCorrect. Yep, you heard me right. It’s super fast and “free” if you’re already using Word. If you don’t use Word, two other paid alternatives are include TextExpander and Text Blaze. This newsletter isn’t about those applications specifically, but I’ve used both and each is excellent in its own way. Both apps are similar with a lot of overlap in functionality. See the comments at the end for some additional brief details about these other apps.
Why more text expansion tips?
Uhhh, to get faster with only a teensy weensy bit of effort. Who wouldn't want that?
If you're already using text expansion when writing, patterns will develop over time. I wanted to share more.
As writers, we’re not just typing the same emails over and over, so we need more generalized text snippets than boilerplate emails and such. We’ll target common chunks of text, typical words that appear together, etc. The goal is to expand on the general ideas and improve typing speed while taking advantage of the muscle memory we’ve already developed when using our own text expansion snippets.
Pattern tips
In this article, we’re mostly extending existing abbreviations with simple changes that significantly expand our trove of snippets.
I’m not trying to present these examples as the gold standard or “you ought to use these.” Some generalized snippets will exist, but your commonly used words and phrases will probably be different than mine. These are just some options to think about rather than an exhaustive list, so pick and choose what works for you. The list is a little long, but I wanted to give everyone a lot of ideas for expanding their own snippet list.
Quick extended text expansion tips
As a starting point, I often use the first few letters of the word, sometimes leaving out vowels sometimes not, depending on the available abbreviations, ease of typing, and any similar real words. The goal is not developing a “perfect system” but achieving a productivity boost with low up front effort. Don’t pick abbreviations that tie your fingers in knots.
Adjective and adverb patterns
Some adjectives have natural adverb forms:
df → definite
aut → automatic (obviously "at" would not work)
Why not add the corresponding adverb in a similar format? I like adding a “y” at the end of the abbreviation.
dfy → definitely
auty → automatically
These only save an extra character or three, but they take advantage of my existing abbreviations.
More verb patterns
Some verbs have a bunch of useful forms. I often use a pattern of the first few letters and then add a suffix for the various tenses or forms. It sounds more complicated than it is.
sep → separate
sepd → separated
sepg → separating
seps → separates
I usually also add the corresponding noun in the same pattern unless it already has a common abbreviation in another form.
sepn → separation
As far as I am concerned, they don’t have to save any additional characters if they stay mostly consistent with the main abbreviation and are easy to remember.
Resolving verb and noun pattern conflicts
If there is a separate verb form similar to a common noun, you can shorten the verb form or vice versa. When writing my newsletter and blog notes, a common noun for me is:
sel → selection
But what about the verb select? I also use it a lot.
sl → select
sld → selected
slg → selecting
I suppose these aren’t perfectly consistent with my own established rules above, but “sel” was one of my earlier abbreviations before I started attempted other more consistent patterns, so it kind of stuck.
Preposition patterns
Some prepositions occur often with other words such as articles or pronouns, so combine them:
ft → of the
ot → on the
nt → in the
tt → to the
twh → toward him
twr → toward her
Since the above abbreviations had several possible conflicts, I vary the starting or ending characters to achieve similar abbreviations that are still easy enough to remember. For example, pronouns like “him” and “her” both start with an h, so I use an “r” for “her” as a general character swap throughout my abbreviations.
Pronoun patterns
I created a base pronoun abbreviation for some and then extended it to various iterations of the word.
sm → some
smg → something
smw → somewhere
smo → someone
smoe → someone else
smh → somehow
Sometimes, I vary the pattern when I’ve already used an abbreviation for something else.
st → sometime (instead of smt which I had already used as for a longer abbreviation)
sts → sometimes
Phonetic abbreviations
Some words are difficult to find a good abbreviation for them, so I’ve tried a few phonetic abbreviations:
enf → enough
It's not my most used abbreviation, but it is interesting.
Include punctuation
You can also include punctuation in the snippet. For example, the abbreviation
fe, → For example,
This works naturally since your fingers want to hit the comma anyhow. The trick is to include the comma in the snippet definition also.
Dialog tags
We can speed up typing some dialog tags especially those including punctuation like double quotes
ss, → ,” she said, “
hs. → ,” he said.
Admittedly, these look convoluted, but I was already typing a comma, so the characters were more natural than they appear in isolation.
Similar words
You could try to include abbreviations for similar words even if you don’t type those words nearly as often. I already defined have.
hv → have
I found myself wanting to type other words using the same pattern, so I further added:
sv → save
mv → move
Not that I use these words as much, but they're easy additions.
Compound text expansions
This is a more recent addition to my text expansion toolbox. As you use your text expansions, you’ll realize you’re repeatedly typing the same words together even as abbreviations. If they occur often enough, why not combine them?
osel → of the selection
idoc → in the document
You probably need to practice with your own text expansions first, so the extended versions roll off your fingertips better. I have grown fond of these and others like them because they save so many characters for common prepositional phrases in my articles.
Overloading some real words
Overloading a few real words is okay if you pick them well. Since there are only so many abbreviation combinations using a keyboard, I sometimes let my own text expansions replace short words I rarely type. For example, I defined:
mob → mail-order bride
I rarely write about the actual mob, but I do like writing in the marriage of convenience genre. With some other words, I just don't use the real word as much as the text expansion, so the abbreviation takes priority.
beg → beginning
For the infrequent cases where you need the actual overridden word, AutoCorrect in Microsoft Word allows you to tap the Undo shortcut to reverse the text expansion.
Unfortunately, this may be a little more frustrating if you use other third-party text expansion apps since they may not undo the expansion as cleanly as AutoCorrect does. The other apps may require multiple undo actions to restore the original text. You'll need to work around the abbreviation without triggering the automatic expansion which is a little annoying.
General Tips
I’m not trying to convince everyone to memorize and use all my text expansions. Start with your own. Then add repeating patterns to your list as get used to using them. I’m just suggesting some patterns in case you’d like some structure for your own abbreviations.
Don’t be exhaustive
Don’t try to be exhaustive about it. I’m not writing a text expansion dictionary. I’m just trying to type faster with easily accessible abbreviations. If you make it too hard on yourself, you’re less likely to use it.
Don’t over optimize
Don’t try to optimize abbreviations to the nth degree (although that is my nature). For example, my fingers already naturally type “sep”, so just go with it rather than trying to save that extra character with “sp”. On the other hand, if you really want to save that character, you can retrain your fingers muscles accordingly. I've done so for some abbreviations.
Character savings
Extensions of your base text expansions don’t necessarily have to save any additional characters if they stay consistent with the main abbreviation and are easy to remember.
Try some variations
You might even include two or three variations of the same abbreviation when you first think of a new snippet. See which one you like better and delete the others later. Again, it’s not about achieving maximum efficiency but making incremental improvements with limited effort.
Phrasing warning
Writers sometimes overuse a few phrases while writing the first draft. This probably improves with experience, but my first novel had lots of grimacing before the first edit.
So … if you define text expansions for body language or other common actions in your text, be careful you don’t over indulge with an already overused phrase. You don't want to increase your editing workload by making them even easier to include. On the other hand, another notion of “just get something on the page” is also useful at times since it’s easier to work with something on the page rather than blank screen.
Use AutoCorrect or something else?
I use AutoCorrect in Word because it is super fast, and it has a native undo feature to replace the original word if a problem occurs. The latter feature also allows me to override a few real words and barely lose anything.
In other apps like a basic text editor or even Microsoft Outlook for certain snippets, I use TextExpander (not an affiliate). TextExpander is actually much easier to use when organizing or creating snippets. It also allows scripts which is a powerful feature. TextExpander works seamlessly between both Windows and Mac systems which is a big plus for me. However in most cases, it has a momentary delay before the expansion (and a quirk with the Alt key in Word for Windows) that makes me stay with AutoCorrect when working in Word.
Another third party text expansion tool that I like is Text Blaze. It's prettier and nicer in some ways but not quite as mature as TextExpander. Text Blaze also has some interesting database-like connectivity, but I didn't need that aspect when I used the app. It's very fast in Chromium-based browsers, but the dedicated Windows or Mac apps are still in beta and a little slow. It may sound like I'm trying to dissuade people from using it, but that's not the case. I like it.
If you're not working in Microsoft Word, try both and see which one you like. Both are excellent choices.
What about voice recognition?
Yeah, definitely use voice recognition if you like it, and yes, it's better than just text expansion alone.
I've used the freely available dictation tool in Word for Mac for some tasks, but it needs some improvement for full writing productivity. More reliable voice recognition is expensive. Something like Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows users also allows voice commands and even macros. Talking to the computer doesn't work as smoothly as in the movies yet, but it will help if you have the funds and are willing to practice some. We also have several articles enhancing access to Word macros from Naturally Speaking (see this one to get started if you're interested, but the journey is a little more technical).
Note however, the words will come out differently when dictating a novel. That's probably fine for dialog and some descriptions, but just be aware of it when editing if something about the text feels different. Our goal today though is to get more words on the page without investing in major new tools.
Keep practicing
I should probably add something profound or philosophical here, but … let’s go with practical instead. Keep practicing with text expansions as part of your normal workflow.
In the worst case if you mess up, just try the abbreviation again the next time. Although, don’t tell anyone that I sometimes delete the whole word and retype the abbreviation to try to reprogram my fingers.
Let me know if you have any other ideas. I’d be happy to compile another list of good ones and share them others.
Is it worth the effort?
These abbreviations can anywhere from save 2 to about 20 characters each. Now add that up across a dozens or even hundreds of them and then across multiple articles, novels, and note documents. Plus, it's just nice to have those words pop up on screen so fast.
