If you’re looking for the original text expander, you might be surprised to learn it actually isn’t TextExpander. An expansion can be as simple as setting “tn” to expand to Typinator, but it can go a whole lot deeper than that, with case specification, cursor positioning and a whole word option that only expands phrases when the next typed character is neither a letter nor a digit, protecting against accidental inserts.

But just because it doesn’t reside in the Dock doesn’t mean it isn’t as full-featured as TextExpander. Unlike most of its peers, Typinator is strictly a menu bar app. With easy drag-and-drop organization and a powerful set of expanding options, Typinator won’t just replace your reliance on TextExpander, it’ll make the transition effortless. Simplicity and speed are the main features of any text expanding app, and Typinator (€25) has them in spades. You can also create fill-in-the-blank templates that can make the most tedious of forms a breeze, and if you have more than one Mac, Dropbox and Google Drive integration will keep your snippets synced across all of them. The interface is hyper-focused on organization, neatly arranging your snippets by groups for easy editing. Like TextExpander, aText’s greatest strength is the time it saves with the automation of monotony. Dates, images, and formatting can also be added to snippets, and handy auto-correction tools can help with capitalization and misspellings. Simple, clearly labeled fields will get your workflow up and running in seconds, storing chunks of text that will expand whenever and wherever their accompanying abbreviations are typed. Setting up snippets is as quick as using them, and aText gets you started with a few common examples.

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