Hi all.

What tools do you us

a) for text expansion (AutoText, boilerplate, etc.) - e.g. PhraseExpress, Breevy, ...
b) clipboard enhancing - e.g. Ditto

Franz

Ah, I forgot: What I am looking for is tools for Windows.

Franz

Hello Franz,

In answer to a.
I've used Blackwell's Idealist database every day since 1995 (version 3, not the buggy version 5 after Blackwell sold out), and this contained a very useful glossary feature. Text entries could be stored using any abbreviation and triggered by the F3 key. This is such second nature to me that, when I bought Nagarsoft's "Direct Access" some years ago, I changed the default expansion key to F3 and this worked well. "Direct Access" then became "PhraseExpander" and I duly upgraded and now use this. However, it has a problem in that, on occasion, it will not recognize F3 and the "Find" dialogue appears instead. This is a real problem with Firefox. I have looked at other alternatives, and also tried the very similar (and free) "WordExpander" which is much faster in operation but requires at least a two-letter shortcut whereas "PhraseExpander" will work with one. I've stayed with "PhraseExpander" because of the following useful feature, below, but would happily consider other suggestions.

b.
"PhraseExpander" also has a useful facility to store the last twenty clipboard entries, but for clipboard enhancing I've used Clipmate for longer than I care to remember.

Kind regards, Geoffrey

Franz Grieser wrote:

b) clipboard enhancing - e.g. Ditto

My main use of clipboard extenders is a) cleaning up copied text from PDFs before pasting into CT, and b) as a back-up service, should I lose stuff that I may have copied before.

For a) I use NoteTab Light (free): SHIFT+CTRL+P activates the pasteboard, which you can keep activated (I created a dedicated text file Clipboard.txt for it that is always open), CTRL+C copies and pastes the content, CTRL+A selects all, and CTRL+J joins the broken lines that are adjacent only - which is important to preserve the original paragraph structure. Then CTRL+A, CTRL+C and CTRL+V to paste it into CT (or anywhere else). It may sound like a lot of steps but it's fairly quick. There is an additional option of "Modify > Spaces > Single Space" to remove extra spaces between words (and there are more text cleaning options). Not bad for a free software.

I bought ClipCache Pro originally for the above purpose but it turned out it had some interference with CT, only pasting the letter "v" for some reason with its QuickPaste option. Also, it joins all the lines even between paragraphs, which is no good. So I use it for purpose b) now.

TextExpander

Flycut

I use ClipMate, but the mention of NoteTab Lite made me think of Brainstorm and TreePad. Both can do the same thing but perhaps in a more organized way than NoteTab. However, if you need to manipulate text then I agree. NoteTab is the way to go.

Jon

For text expansion (and more), I use Macro Express: http://www.macroexpress.com/

For clipboard management, Clipcache Pro: http://www.xrayz.co.uk/clipcache/

Dr Andus wrote:

CTRL+C copies and pastes the content, CTRL+A selects all, and CTRL+J joins the broken
lines that are adjacent only - which is important to preserve the original paragraph
structure.

Like Jon, I also thought of Brainstorm when reading your description of using Notetab. Brainstorm has a clever way of joining lines of text:

- Enter edit mode (F2) and go to the end of the line
- Press DEL to join with the next paragraph/line (as you might expect)
- Here's the clever bit: Brainstorm will join the lines adding a space in between, and the cursor will then jump to the END of the second line, ready for joining with the next one.

I also own a license to Clipcache Pro which I consider an excellent clipboard extender. However, at the end of the day, clipboard extenders have a 'generic' approach, handling all kinds of data (plain text, rich text, images, files, URLs...) that may end up in the clipboard. As I work 90% with plain text in my clipboard, I find a tool like Brainstorm (or Notetab) more useful.

That said, one tool that I find indispensable is the shared clipboard Simidude. Especially now, with my main Windows laptop on one side and my Linux notebook on the other, it is like having an extended desktop.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Dr Andus wrote:
>CTRL+C copies and pastes the content, CTRL+A selects all, and
CTRL+J joins the broken
>lines that are adjacent only - which is important to
preserve the original paragraph
>structure.

Like Jon, I also thought of
Brainstorm when reading your description of using Notetab. Brainstorm has a clever
way of joining lines of text:

- Enter edit mode (F2) and go to the end of the line
-
Press DEL to join with the next paragraph/line (as you might expect)
- Here's the
clever bit: Brainstorm will join the lines adding a space in between, and the cursor
will then jump to the END of the second line, ready for joining with the next one.

Thanks, but I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing... I was talking about joining the lines in a large piece of text with a single click of CTRL+J. You seem to be describing a more piecemeal process of joining lines manually.

Let's say I have the text of a 10,000-word PDF article gathered in a single NoteTab document where there is a space between each paragraph (cleverly inserted by Notetab), however the lines within the paragraphs have been broken, so if I had pasted that text into another application (e.g. Word), I would have had to manually join each line. With NoteTab it's a single CTRL+A and CTRL+J and all the lines are joined in one go, while the spaces between the paragraphs are preserved.

Perhaps there are dedicated PDF-stripping or OCR-ing apps out there to do this, but this NoteTab process seems fairly easy (and cheap). And usually I wouldn't copy the entire 10K words but a fraction of that (key passages).

Let's say I have the text of a 10,000-word PDF
article gathered in a single NoteTab document where there is a space between each
paragraph (cleverly inserted by Notetab), however the lines within the paragraphs
have been broken, so if I had pasted that text into another application (e.g. Word), I
would have had to manually join each line. With NoteTab it's a single CTRL+A and CTRL+J
and all the lines are joined in one go, while the spaces between the paragraphs are
preserved.

I use Message Cleaner for this need http://www.roundhillsoftware.com/MessageCleaner/?ReDir

Jeff

Dr Andus wrote:

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>- Here's the clever bit: Brainstorm will join the lines adding a space in between, and the cursor
>will then jump to the END of the second line, ready for joining with the next one.

Thanks, but I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing... I was talking about joining the lines in a large
piece of text with a single click of CTRL+J. You seem to be describing a more piecemeal
process of joining lines manually.

Indeed, not the same thing. It was more of an opportunity to talk about Brainstorm. J

I also installed Notetab Light recently to a colleague's PC for its auto-paste feature. It is indeed a great tool.

Geoffrey Miller wrote:

Firefox. I have looked at other alternatives, and also tried the very similar (and
free) "WordExpander" which is much faster in operation but requires at least a
two-letter shortcut whereas "PhraseExpander" will work with one.

Geoffrey, thanks for these suggestions. I was most interested in the SmartComplete feature of PhraseExpander, where you can select a phrase from a floating menu of similar phrases, which appears as you type the given abbreviation. However, this feature is only available in the Pro edition, which costs USD140. But WordExpander can also do this and it's entirely free!

I've been using an Apple Wireless Keyboard with the "Unofficial Apple Wireless Keyboard Support for Windows" AutoHotKey script and I found that I had to turn UAWKS script off to be able to use WordExpander. I also tried PhraseExpress but I couldn't do justice to it, as I didn't realise UAWKS was interfering with it. This prompted me to find a replacement for AUWKS that wouldn't interfere with this category of software and I've happily found it in AppleWirelessKeyboard: http://uxsoft.cz/projects/applewirelesskeyboard/

Hi.

Thanks to all who offered their insight.

PhraseExpander looks interesting. However, I tend to go with PhraseExpress as it imports Word AutoText and AutoCorrect and has a huge library of German AutoCorrect entries. Breevy does also import Word AutoCorrect and AutoText but it has a number of quirks when using it with German text which I would have to correct manually (it always autocorrects "i" at the beginning of a word as "I" and it misspells my name as Fraunz).
PhraseExpress is not cheap when you wish to go with the Pro edition and plan to use it on several PCs. But I am confident that the investment will soon be offset by improved productivity. It also has a clipboard enhancement feature (which I just learnt) and the new vs 9 will be available by the end of this week.

Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

PhraseExpander looks interesting.
However, I tend to go with PhraseExpress as it imports Word AutoText and AutoCorrect
and has a huge library of German AutoCorrect entries. Breevy does also import Word
AutoCorrect and AutoText but it has a number of quirks when using it with German text
which I would have to correct manually (it always autocorrects "i" at the beginning of
a word as "I" and it misspells my name as Fraunz).
PhraseExpress is not cheap when you
wish to go with the Pro edition and plan to use it on several PCs. But I am confident that
the investment will soon be offset by improved productivity. It also has a clipboard
enhancement feature (which I just learnt) and the new vs 9 will be available by the end
of this week.

You haven't mentioned WordExpander, which is completely free: http://www.wordexpander.net/ (It doesn't help that these products are so similarly named...).

AutoHotKey is an excellent and very configurable tool for text expansion, among other things.

http://www.autohotkey.com/

Dr Andus

You haven't mentioned WordExpander, which is completely free:

I meant WordExpander and not PhraseExpander

http://www.wordexpander.net/ (It doesn't help that these products are so
similarly named...).

Indeed :-)

Just a comment about WordExpander because I hate bad service. Though the WordExpander site has a "Support" link and and e-mail address from which to get support, when I contacted them (because WordExpander is very buggy on my computer) I got a very terse response that WordExpander is freeware and if I wanted support I should pay for PhraseExpress. When I followed up with them they said that the "Support" was really to get feedback and not to provide support.

Sigh. It's fair enough not to provide support for freeware, but not if you suggest that you do on the site.

Graham

Franz Grieser wrote:

Dr Andus

>You haven't mentioned WordExpander, which is completely free:

I meant
WordExpander and not PhraseExpander

>http://www.wordexpander.net/ (It
doesn't help that these products are so
>similarly named...).

Indeed :-)

The "Support" information has now been removed from their site. So it's an unsupported solution.

Graham

Graham Rhind wrote:

Sigh. It's fair
enough not to provide support for freeware, but not if you suggest that you do on the
site.

Graham Rhind wrote:

The "Support" information has now been removed from their site. So it's an
unsupported solution.

Interesting. I was just looking at that page last night and it was still there. In the software (v. 1.5.15.22729) though it still says "Customer Support: Get help from our support team."

Nevertheless, I'm still grateful to the developer to have made the software freely available. Do any of the other text expanders for Win have this popup menu (suggestions window) next to the cursor that WordExpander and PhraseExpander have? That is a key feature for me.

Franz Grieser wrote:

Breevy does also import Word
AutoCorrect and AutoText but it has a number of quirks when using it
with German text which I would have to correct manually (it always
autocorrects "i" at the beginning of a word as "I" and it misspells my
name as Fraunz).

Hi Franz, sorry to hear about the issues you've experienced with Breevy. Please feel free to shoot us an e-mail at support@16software.com and we'd love to try and figure out what's going on and hopefully get it fixed for you.

(I actually think I might know what's happening with the lowercase "i" always being changed to a capital "I" -- I could be wrong but my guess is that your "i" abbreviation's replacement mode is set to "immediately" (lightning bolt icon). If you switch it to "after a word-ending character is typed" (blue icon with white "W" on it) and then Apply your changes, that should make it so Breevy only replaces the lowercase "i" with a capital "I" if it's typed as a single word rather than also at the beginning of words. Regarding the issue of your name being misspelled, I'm not sure what would be causing that other than it being misspelled in the abbreviation's replacement text, but again, feel free to e-mail us at support@16software.com and we'd be happy to troubleshoot the issue with you if you like.)

- Patrick

In fairness to the developer of PhraseExpander, who contacted me after my post here, the F3 issue does seem to be specific to my installation of Firefox, for some reason (possibly some conflict with an extension?). Following a very good deal to upgrade to the "Pro" version, with its "Smart Complete" feature, I recommend this thoroughly.

Regards,
Geoffrey

In the meantime I also realised that the free WordExpander is made by the same people as PhraseExpress (which also has a free version for personal use). I'm reasonably happy with WordExpander. I actually like the fact that it came without any preinstalled vocabulary, as I preferred to develop my own. I just wish it would recognise capitalisation, but other than that, works well.

This free edition is also available in German. But it only allows 30 or so entries.
I am still test-driving PhraseExpress. It sometimes does strange things and sometimes disables (for no obvious reason) autocorrection entries I defined. It says that it disables them but I cannot find a way to stop it from doing so.
From time to time, autocorrection messes up words and I have to really fight with PhraseExpress to get the word I want. And the demo version does not let me test the desktop menus.
So I am still not sure whether I will really pay the money for PhraseExpress Pro.

Franz

Dr Andus wrote:

In the meantime I also realised that the free WordExpander is made by
the same people as PhraseExpress (which also has a free version for
personal use). I'm reasonably happy with WordExpander. I actually like
the fact that it came without any preinstalled vocabulary, as I
preferred to develop my own. I just wish it would recognise
capitalisation, but other than that, works well.

Thanks for the reply Patrick (I just stumbled over your post).
I uninstalled Breevy and right now I am testing PhraseExpress. If I am not satisfied with PE (there are some quirks, too), I will give Breevy another try.

Franz

Patrick from 16 Software wrote:

Franz Grieser wrote:
>Breevy does also import Word
>AutoCorrect and AutoText but it has a number of quirks when using it
>with German text which I would have to correct manually (it always
>autocorrects "i" at the beginning of a word as "I" and it misspells my
>name as Fraunz).

Hi Franz, sorry to hear about the issues you've experienced with Breevy.
Please feel free to shoot us an e-mail at support@16software.com and
we'd love to try and figure out what's going on and hopefully get it
fixed for you.

(I actually think I might know what's happening with the lowercase "i"
always being changed to a capital "I" -- I could be wrong but my guess
is that your "i" abbreviation's replacement mode is set to "immediately"
(lightning bolt icon). If you switch it to "after a word-ending
character is typed" (blue icon with white "W" on it) and then Apply your
changes, that should make it so Breevy only replaces the lowercase "i"
with a capital "I" if it's typed as a single word rather than also at
the beginning of words. Regarding the issue of your name being
misspelled, I'm not sure what would be causing that other than it being
misspelled in the abbreviation's replacement text, but again, feel free
to e-mail us at support@16software.com and we'd be happy to troubleshoot
the issue with you if you like.)

- Patrick

Just for summary purposes, I went through this thread and made notes of the utilities that had been mentioned - I'll just paste my notes here for reference -

autotext
phraseexpander
wordexpander
textexpander
macroexpress
autohotkey
phraseexpress
breevy

clipboard utility
clipmate
ditto
clipcache pro
flycut (Mac?)
simidude (shared clipboard)


text cleanup
notetab light
clipcache pro
messagecleaner

I have been using PhraseExpress free for autotext for a long time, but on one of my computers, it just stops working frequently, and I have to shut it down and restart it - annoying. So I wanted to see what alternatives were out there for Windows.

Before PhraseExpress, I used Robotype (PC Mag utility) for a long time, but had glitches with it too, which made me switch to PhraseExpress.

If I could find one of these that "just works" very reliably on my desktop and laptop, I'd be sold.

jim