These scripts convert the case of copied text-so itвЂ™ll turn whateve youвЂ™ve copied to all lower case, all upper case, title case (every word capitalized), or sentence case (the first word of every sentence capitalized). I also use some snippets based on Perl scripts that I found on a blog called Thought Asylum. (Note that, for this to work, you should open TextExpanderвЂ™s preferences and make sure the Default Snippet Format is set to Plain Text.) That pastes the copied text without any of its formatting. Then, after youвЂ™ve copied whatever text you want, you invoke that snippet (I use the shortcut :plain). But I learned a simple trick from David Sparks: You create a snippet consisting of just that %clipboard variable I mentioned earlier. There are plenty of tools built into various apps or third-party utilities that will do this paste-as-plain-text trick for you. Instead, I usually want to paste it as simple, plain text. If I just do the usual Command-C/Command-V, that text could be pasted with all of its Web formatting intact. So, for example, a lot of time I need to copy text from a webpage to another app. But, once again, TextExpander proves a handy tool for the job, in large part because itвЂ™s effective in any app youвЂ™re running.

Again, there are lots of utilities thatвЂ™ll help you do this. Some of the time that means futzing around with the formatting of text weвЂ™re copying from one place to another. You could do the same for any search operators you use most often.ДЇinally, as I said before Macworld editors spend our work lives dealing mostly with text. That then limits the Google search just to our site. But, because I use Chrome, with its unified search/address bar, I can instead just type whatever search term IвЂ™m looking for, followed by a TextExpander shortcut that inserts the Google operator site. I could navigate my browser to and use our own search tools. There are times when I want to find something on our site. One snippet I use multiple times a day: A Google search operator- site:-that searches. So I made it into a TextExpander snippet. I only use it a couple of times a month, but IвЂ™d still hate to have to type it out every time. For example: the body texts of email messages that I have to send a lot, things like assignments to writers, requests for paperwork, or in this case the email I send to our copy editors when IвЂ™m submitting an article. form-and it inserts my formal email sig.Д«eyond small snippets, I also use TextExpander to insert blocks of boilerplate text that I use a lot. So what I do is compose my email message, then at the bottom I type out the TextExpander shortcut for the email signature I want to use-in this case. I could use MailвЂ™s built-in signature tools, but I find them clunky doing it with TextExpander is a lot easier. The first one is a classic application: Any little chunk of text you type a lot, things like phone numbers, email addresses, or in this case email signatures.ДЇor example, I use a couple of different email signatures, depending on whom IвЂ™m mailing.

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