Feature overview
"If I sum-up the time that I can save with Typinator, I am sure that there will be time for one or another additional round of golf."
Whenever you are writing text, you probably find yourself typing the same words or phrases again and again. Whether this is your name, your e-mail address, the URL of your home page - or if you often need quick access to images like your signature, location map, or company logo.
Typinator is here to save your time by "typing" these frequently used text blocks (also known as boilerplates) and images for you. You just define your list of abbreviations once, and Typinator will automatically expand them as you type.
Typinator is also very useful as an auto-correction tool. Typinator comes with thousands of predefined corrections for common typos and misspelled words for the languages English, German, and French. Out of the box, it will automatically correct your misspellings - not only in MS Office applications, but system-wide in any application.
Drag-and-drop import from Textpander, TextExpander, and TypeIt4Me makes migration to Typinator a no-brainer.
- Easy to configure - simply define your abbreviations, expansions, and boilerplates in a list.
- Simple to use - just type your abbreviation and Typinator will expand it.
- Include script results in expansions.
- Text file includes.
- Pocket calculator.
- Date and time caclulations.
- Quickly create new snippets.
- Quickly search for snippets.
- Organize your snippets by their meaning and purpose.
- Built-in AutoCorrection sets with thousands of corrections for English, German, and French.
- Set options let you define individual settings per set.
- Synchronization support for DropBox and MobileMe iDisk.
- Import from Textpander, TextExpander, TypeIt4Me, text files, and Typinator sets from other users.
- Application-specific settings: Define which sets should be active in which applications, or disable Typinator for certain applications.
- Set the cursor position within the expanded text.
- Enable/disable individual sets.
- HTML snippets set with over 100 abbreviations for elements of the HTML 4.01 standard.
- Predefined FileMaker functions set with over 350 abbreviations of all FileMaker 9 functions.
- Insert the current clipboard into the expanded text.
- Works with any application.
- Inserts the current date and time.
- "Whole Word" expansion - optionally expand an abbreviation only if it is typed as an entire word.
- "Types" pictures.
- Preformatted text insertion
- Case sensitive expansion
- Search feature lets you instantly view only snippets that contain a specified search string.
- Option to temporarily suspend expansions.
- Full Unicode support
- Plain application (no special service to be installed)
Want to see Typinator in action? Click here to watch a short demo movie...
To define an abbreviation, just add a new item to the abbreviations list, enter the abbreviation and the expansion text or paste the corresponding picture.
Inserting your predefined expansions is as easy as typing text.
Just type the abbreviation and Typinator will expand it to the full text or picture.
Typinator lets you organize your abbreviations in sets.
- group snippets by their meaning or purpose (such as URLs, signatures, letter templates, code fragments, mail boilerplates, auto-corrections, Unix commands, etc.)
- import and export sets for sharing them with others or moving them to another Mac
- selectively enable or disable groups of abbreviations in specific applications
Powerful scripts for everyone, even without programming knowledge.
Typinator 5 makes powerful scripts usable for everyone, even without programming knowledge. Scripts let you build versatile text expansions with dynamic features like
- stock quotes
- conversions
- calendar functions
- advanced date and time calculations
- clipboard manipulation
- URL processing
- dynamic signatures
- context-sensitive code fragments
- ...
The possible uses are virtually unlimited.
Programmers can easily extend the scripting repertoire of Typinator. One of the best things of Typinator's scripting feature is its flexible technology under the hood. Parameters and persistent variables enable script developers to combine multiple scripts and communicate with Typinator in novel ways. This opens the door for many future extensions.
Typinator supports scripts written in in many different languages like AppleScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and arbitrary shell scripting languages.
Visit our Download Extras page to choose from a collection of free scripts or download documentation about how to write your own scripts.
Convert currencies and other units of measure as you type
The Conversion AppleScript impressively demonstrates the power and flexibility of Typinator's scripting capabilities. With this free AppleScript installed, you can convert currencies based on current exchange rates as well as arbitrary other units of measure and get the conversion results inserted instantly into the current text.
With no programming knowledge required and only one simple conversion snippet (>>>), you convert any amount from a source unit to a destination unit:
- "20 USD EUR >>>" yields "15.0840938"
- "120 km miles" >>> yields "74.5645431"
- "90 degrees radians" >>> yields "1.57079633"
- "37 Celsius Fahrenheit" >>> yields "98.6"
- "1 kg lbs" >>> yields "2.20462262"
- "95 kW HP" >>> yields "127.397099"
These are just a few examples. The Conversion script comes with various inspiring examples that demonstrate how specialized conversions can be made with just a few keystrokes.
Download the free script and convert arbitrary units of measure as you type, or use it as starting points for your own scripts.
If you have created a script that you want to share with other Typinator users, please let us know. We'll be happy to add it to our Download Extras page.
Typinator can insert the current clipboard as well as the current date and time, set the insertion point within the expanded text, and even delete text that was typed immediately before the abbreviation.
The {...} popup menu provides convenient access to these special expansion elements as well to the Scripts and Includes files.
Starting with Typinator 5, the QuickSearch field also serves as a simple, yet powerful pocket calculator. Just enter a calculation, such as “137*1.25+341.6”, and the result of the calculation appears in the expansion list in multiple formats

Pick the desired item to insert the result in the corresponding format. Typinator remembers your choice and moves this format to the top of the list, so you can access it faster the next time.
"QuickSearch takes usage and management of text expansion to the next level."
Typinator's "QuickSearch" takes usage and management of text snippets to the next level. Instead of inventing and remembering hundreds of cryptic abbreviations, you just type a few characters into a search field and choose from the resulting list. It's like Spotlight for snippets, just faster.
With a hot key you bring up a search field and enter a search string, Typinator pops up a list of matches, you select the one you want, and it appears in your document.
This allows you to actively use a huge number of text snippets without having to remember their abbreviations.
QuickSearch can also be used for quickly opening and editing existing snippets.
Typinator lets you create new snippets as quick as a flash. If you've just typed a text fragment that you would like to use again, select it, then type the user-definable hotkey or choose Typinator's "New item from Selection" menu command to quickly turn it into a snippet. Enter the desired abbreviation and click the Add button. It's that simple.
If you've just mistyped a word for the umpteenth time, turn it into an AutoCorrection: Select the word, then use Typinator's "New item from Selection" command. Typinator will even help you with suggestions. Select the correct spelling, click Add, and then forget about it. From now on, Typinator will correct this word whenever you mistype it again.
You can easily set up Typinator to synchronize your snippets across your computers. Whenever you add or change a snippet on one computer, it will instantly be available on any of your other computers that you've configured that way.
Synchronizing your Typinator snippets base with Dropbox or MobileMe iDisk is ideal for having a consistent set of snippets available at your desktop Mac and your laptop at any time.
Click here to try Dropbox for free.
"I use it every day and it saves me oodles of time keying in formulas and auto-correcting my mistakes."
Typinator comes with built-in sets for automatic correction of many popular typing errors in US and British English, German and French as well US and British versions of the free TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary with over 2300 additional corrections.
These sets are not added automatically. To add them to your set list, just click the "Predefined Sets" button in the toolbar and select the languages of your choice.The auto-correction sets contain 
thousands of correction rules that have been carefully designed to fix typing errors even when you work with multiple languages.
If you need to switch between English and French, just add both languages to your set list.
If you are typing German text, you will particularly enjoy Typinator helping you to switch to the latest language reform by translating many words and phrases according to the "Neue Deutsche Rechtschreibung".
Typinator lets you easily customize sets. You can, for example, assign separate feedback sounds for spelling corrections and various types of expansions, and you can define which parts should be included in Typinator's QuickSearch.
To start or end all abbreviations within a set with the same sequence of characters, just define a prefix or suffix.
Typinator lets you easily add abbreviations from a variety of sources.
You can import...
- Typinator sets someone else has created
- Snippet files from Textpander, TextExpander and TypeIt4Me
- Tab-delimited text files containing abbreviations and their expansions
Importing is as easy as copying files: Just drag a file from the Finder into Typinator's set list or use Typinator's Import menu command.
Of course, Typinator automatically imports all your abbreviations from previous versions if you already had older versions of Typinator installed in the past.
The Application Settings panel lets you fine-tune which abbreviations shall be expanded in which applications.
With a few clicks, you can define that your Unix commands are expanded only in Terminal, your signatures and reply templates only in Mail, your URLs in Safari and Firefox, your code fragments only in Xcode, and your auto-corrections in all other applications.
Typinator lets you combine applications and sets in arbitrary ways, depending on your personal preferences. You can even use the same shortcut with different expansions in different applications. And if you need to entirely disable Typinator in a specific application, you simply disable all sets for this application.
"Many users switch to Typinator because it's so much faster"
Many users have already reported that they have switched to Typinator from other expansion tools because Typinator is so much faster.
No matter how fast you type and how many abbreviations you have defined: Typinator watches your keystrokes and expands abbreviations in virtually no time.
On Mac OS X 10.5.5 or newer, Typinator uses a new technique that makes most plain text expansions (including all auto-corrections) even faster.
3000 auto-corrections plus 2000 custom abbreviations? No problem. You type at 450 keystrokes per minute and need to expand 65000 product codes into the corresponding product descriptions? Still no problem. Typinator quickly expands as fast as you type and helps you to increase your productivity even more.
Abbreviations are most useful when they are very short, so you can remember and type them easily. On the other hand, short abbreviations will more likely expand by accident if a regular word happens to begin with the same letters. For example, you might want to use "ty" as an abbreviation for "Typinator", but you don't want it to expand when you actually want to write "typically" or "tyre".
When you enable the “Whole word” option for an abbreviation, Typinator expands it only when the next typed character is neither a letter nor a digit.
Whereas the "Whole word" option is useful for short abbreviations that you type deliberately, you may want to disable it for word stems when you want Typinator to automatically correct typing errors.
Typinator can type more than just text.
You can also define abbreviations that will expand to pictures.
This is a great feature to easily "type" your own hand-written signature at the end of a business letter, or to quickly insert any other picture in your document.
In general, Typinator expands the abbreviation in the font and style currently used in your text application. However, you can also create formatted expansions with multiple fonts and even embedded pictures.
If a text block/boilerplate (such as the phrase "by the way") can appear at the beginning and in the middle of a sentence, you can tell Typinator to match the inserted phrase with the case of the typed abbreviation, so "btw" will expand as "by the way" and "Btw" will result in "By the way".
The HTML snippets set for Typinator provides over 100 abbreviations for elements of the HTML 4.01 standard.
The HTML snippets set is included in Typinator 3.1 and newer.
"Typinator is THE productivity booster for FileMaker developers."
The FileMaker 9 functions set contains over 350 abbreviations for all FileMaker 9 functions that provide FileMaker developers with an unprecedented increase of productivity.
Function names together with their parameters can now be inserted ultra-fast by typing a short abbreviation instead of tediously searching for them via popup-menu and long lists.
This is particularly useful for all Get functions, where you normally have to switch to the proper category before you can select the desired function from the list.
And if you are not sure how you can access the name of the current user in a FileMaker formula, just use Typinator's QuickSearch feature and search for "user".
