Text Expander for Windows

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.

The Boilerplate template software PhraseExpress cannot only manage static text templates but also allows you to create multiple choice phrases. You can then choose the desired phrase or partial sentences from a handy popup menu that appears next to the cursor.

This video demo shows you how to configure multiple choice phrases. Please turn on your speakers:

Additional information can be found in the manual at http://manual.phraseexpress.com#insert.

If you enter an Autotext in MS Office, it does not recognize upper and lower case letters and always insert the phrase with upper/lower case as you originally stored it.

The problem is, that sometimes you enter an Autotext in the beginning of a sentence and need the inserted text starting with upper case. And if pasted within a sentence, you rather need lower caps text insertions.

The Autotext utility PhraseExpress now can dynamically choose the suitable upper or lower case automatically.

See the video demonstration here (turn on your speakers):

Additional information can be found in the manual.

Dennis O’Reilly explains a way to export your Word AutoCorrect items for use on another PC.

This may work nicely but it may get tedious if you want to have your AutoCorrect settings synchronized on all your computers.

PhraseExpress allows you to not only to share your AutoCorrect settings among multiple computers in a network but also to use them in any program, not just in Outlook or Word.

Here is a step-by-step video tutorial that shows you how to import your AutoCorrect data:

You can either share the AutoCorrect data by importing and exporting the phrase file or alternatively use the PhraseExpress Network Edition that allows sharing phrases, signatures and Autotext items with a sophisticated Client-/Server architecture.

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”:

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):

Imagine, you could highlight any text in any program and search for that term e.g. in Google, Wikipedia, Translate.com, etc., with a single keystroke.

The text expander “PhraseExpress” offers that: For example, mark an address in Word, Messenger, Excel, dBase or Dreamweaver, hit the customizable keyboard shortcut CTRL-F8 and select the desired webpage for the query in a handy popup menu.

Here is video demonstration (turn on speakers):

If this feature should not work out-of-the-box in your configuration, update to the latest PhraseExpress version and download the free add-on that offers the “Smart Search” feature.

You can also add other websites of your choice. We will show you  how to do this in another video tutorial soon.

Program Launchers have become a popular software utility category.

Personally, I have never understood this idea for a simple reason: Why install an extra utility for a task that can be done in Windows already?!

Ever hit the WIN-key on your keyboard? Just try and then begin to type the application’s name you want to launch. As you can see, Vista already comes with a “Program Launcher”!

Anyway, PhraseExpress can also launch programs by entering a text shortcut if you want:

Benefits of using PhraseExpress as a Program Launcher:

• You do not need to install yet another application for that task.
• You can also open file folders or websites by shortcuts
• You can share your program launch shortcuts with others with the PhraseExpress Network Edition
• The program launch feature can be combined with any other PhraseExpress macro function.
• PhraseExpress is free-of-charge for personal use.

PhraseExpress originally is a text expander utility but also include a Clipboard Manager as a ‘side-dish‘.
Demonstration Video:

The Clipboard cache can keep up to 99 Windows clipboard contents which would normally be overwritten by the system whenever you copy new contents to the clipboard.

By default, you can open the clipboard cache selection popup by striking the hotkey CTRL-ALT-V.

Optionally, you can let PhraseExpress strip off any text formatting from the clipboard items.

More information can be found in the manual at http://manual.phraseexpress.com#cache

The free Text Expander utility PhraseExpress can help you to enter html code more efficiently. You only need to enter the beginnning of any html tag and the program offers you to close the tag automatically.

Here is a video demonstration (turn on your speakers):

This feature works in any Windows program, e.g. your web browser or simple text editor.