Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Chrome is a useful resource beast. I spend most of my day within the browser, hopping between Gmail, Asana, WordPress, Airtable, and a smorgasbord of websites and companies, so I attempt to maintain any extras to a minimal. Meaning no Chrome extensions until they’re work-required. There’s one exception to the rule, although, and it’s Textual content Blaze, a strong textual content expander that lives and syncs throughout all of my Chrome installations.
After I began utilizing Textual content Blaze, round three or 4 years in the past, I used to be in search of a textual content expander app for my Pixelbook that may work equally to TextExpander on my iMac. After setting it up and utilizing it for just a few days, I let go of the Mac app and fully switched to Textual content Blaze as a result of it was actually cross-platform and I might sync it throughout each my iMac and Pixelbook. Higher but, I might add the Chrome extension to each my private and work Chrome profiles, so I’d at all times have entry to it, it doesn’t matter what.
Textual content Blaze is a textual content expander extension that saves me from typing the identical factor over and over.
For those who’ve used textual content expander apps earlier than, you in all probability know all the pieces Textual content Blaze can do. It provides snippets, dynamic components, clipboard assist, and cursor placement totally free customers, with extra (kinds, pictures, a number of customers) for paid subscribers.
However in case you’ve by no means tried a textual content expander earlier than, let me clarify why it is a life-changer.
Do you utilize a textual content growth app or extension in your laptop?
404 votes
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Textual content expander apps are like shortcuts that paste an extended little bit of textual content with just a few keystrokes. The best instance is to stick your full tackle whenever you sort one thing like /add for instance, otherwise you signature whenever you sort /sig, so that you don’t must sort all the pieces up time and again.
The ahead slash (/) is a good image so as to add to your shortcut. It helps you and the textual content expander app differentiate between a standard occasion of you typing the phrase “add” and whenever you deliberately need to insert your tackle.
Different examples embody template-like emails or replies and any little bit of textual content you usually have to sort. At a time when AI can write complete paragraphs for us, who has time to repeatedly sort the identical factor? We’re all seeking to save time, not waste it.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
For me, a textual content expander like Textual content Blaze saves a variety of time in each my job and my on a regular basis on-line life. I usually write about merchandise obtainable within the EU or UK, however my keyboard doesn’t have the euro or pound symbols. To keep away from digging within the symbols menu every time, I’ve made a snippet that replaces /eur with € and /gbp with £, so I don’t break my typing stride when writing about costs exterior the US.
In contrast to my iMac, my Pixelbook — and most Chromebooks — don’t have an em-dash “—” image on their keyboard. It’s a personality I usually use as a author, so I’ve arrange a snippet to switch /em with — and now I can rapidly and simply add an em-dash whereas writing on my Pixelbook. This alone is price putting in the extension for my very own use, ha!
Then there are different symbols. After I speak about Android apps, the /of shortcut inserts the overflow ⋮ image. After I need to point out temperatures whereas reviewing telephones’ thermal efficiency, sensible thermostats, or smartwatches with a temperature sensor, the /deg shortcut will get me the ° image. All of those are small time-savers that add up over the course of a day’s work, not to mention per week, month, or yr.
However issues go to the subsequent stage once I begin digging into the Android Authority-specific shortcuts I’ve arrange in Textual content Blaze.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Our staff makes use of a set of particular instructions to insert most of the components you see when studying our articles. The TL;DR packing containers, opinion publish alerts, YouTube video embeds, highlighted pull quotes just like the one beneath, FAQ packing containers, and extra are all dynamic components that we add on demand. There are buttons for these in WordPress, however I hate stopping mid-flow to succeed in for my trackpad, transfer the cursor, and click on a button. I’ll at all times select to sort over utilizing the mouse.
Issues go to the subsequent stage once I begin digging into my Android Authority shortcuts.
My Android Authority snippets don’t simply add the code for these components, although. In addition they pace issues up by inserting the cursor precisely the place I would like it to be, so I can sort the textual content as wanted, like within the /pq pull quote snippet within the screenshot above.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
For my YouTube snippet above, I’ve sped issues up additional by setting it up so it mechanically pastes my clipboard. Now, all I have to do is copy the video’s code from the URL, go to WordPress, and kind /yt to get the video to embed. This replaces the time-wasting 5-button course of the staff at present has in place.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Textual content Blaze can do a lot, rather more than these “fundamental” snippets, with complicated kinds and tables, autopilot clicks and cursor actions, in addition to command pack integrations with Gmail and LinkedIn. Most of those are paid options, although, and fall beneath a $2.99-$6.99 month-to-month subscription. They’re not obligatory options for my very own use circumstances, so I keep on with the free model.
After just a few years with Textual content Blaze, there’s no going again for me. That is probably the most helpful productiveness extension on my Chrome setup now. One of many first issues I do when establishing a brand new laptop or Chrome set up is to signal into my account to sync all my snippets, in any other case I discover myself typing /em and /eur to no avail. I simply want Chrome extensions had been supported on Android natively so I’d have entry to my shortcuts when working from my Pixel Pill.