Text Expander for Windows » General

Insert a future or past date or time within a text snippet

Michael — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:22:27 +0000

PhraseExpress cannot only insert the current time or date but also output a date or time that is in the future or past.

Here are two examples (assume it’s a Thursday and the time is 10:45 PM):

If the Autotext is “in one hour”, the required macro function would be {#datetime -f t -s 1H}. The text that will be pasted after you type the corresponding Autotext In one hour will be 11:45 PM.
If the phrase text is “Three days ago was a {#datetime -f ddddd -s -3D}”, the text output will be “Three days ago was a Monday“.

You can add or subtract years, months, days, hours, minutes, or seconds. This can be easily configured with the macro input dialog as shown in this step-by-step tutorial video:

Enjoy!

P.S.: Please do not miss our other video tutorial about the date/time stamp function. It will show you how you can output the current time or date by just pressing a hotkey…

Avoiding unwanted Autotext replacements

Michael — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:01:38 +0000

The text replacement utility PhraseExpress has several options to avoid unwanted text insertions caused by the Autotext function.

This video will show you some tricks to get the most out of Autotext:

Please learn more in the chapter Autotext of the PhraseExpress manual.

Add a random quote to your Email Signature

Michael — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:09:45 +0000

The Text snippets organizer “PhraseExpress” can also store email signatures for use with any email client or web based email application.

The are many benefits of using PhraseExpress for this task instead of the signature feature built-in most email clients:

You can manage your signatures centrally with the Network Edition
Signatures can be used in any program not just the one email client you are currently using.
PhraseExpress makes it easier to select from multiple signatures; e.g. if you have separate signatures for personal vs. business purposes or if you have signatures in different languages.
Your signature templates can be enriched with dynamic contents such as a random quote or additional text automatically scheduled by time-/date, such as a seasonal promotional offer.

Here is a video tutorial how to create a signature with your written signature and a random “Idiom of the day”:

Auto-fill forms in any program

Michael — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:14:20 +0000

Filling forms again and over again is a quite tedious task. There are Firefox add-ons to cover this job but the downside is that such proprietary addon is limited to one particular program. Any stored abbreviation would not be available anywhere else (e.g. if you switch to another browser or if you work in another program).

The text expander PhraseExpress works system-wide in any Windows program and allows you to quickly fill in forms in your favorite web browser as well as in any other application such as a PDF form, etc.

Video demonstratin (turn on speakers):