Unfit For Print

Textpander with Word Autocompletion

Posted by Ben Jackson Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:32:00 GMT

If you have a mac and haven't heard of Textpander, take a look. It's an autocorrection program, wch mns tht y cn wrt n abbrvs lk ths. Writing has never been so much fun.

I don't like Word. But one thing that Microsoft got at least somewhat right was a decent autocompletion list for common misspellings. Problem is, you have to use Word to take advantage of this. Until now.

With a clever macro that I found, you can spit out your Word autocompletion list into a tab-delimited document. Cut and paste the result into your favorite regexp-enabled text editor and run the following:

Find: (.+?)\t(.+?)\n

Replace: \t\t<dict>\n\t\t\t<key>Abbreviation</key>\n\t\t\t<string><![CDATA[$1]]></string>\n\t\t\t<key>Mode</key>\n\t\t\t<integer>2</integer>\n\t\t\t<key>Plain Text</key>\n\t\t\t<string><![CDATA[$2]]></string>\n\t\t</dict>\n

Cut and paste this into a new document, sandwiching it between

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Auditory Feedback</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Client Mode</key>
    <integer>0</integer>
    <key>Last Version</key>
    <string>1.1</string>
    <key>Remote Snippets</key>
    <array/>
    <key>Restore Pasteboard</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Snippet Menu Item Width</key>
    <integer>370</integer>
    <key>Snippets</key>

and

    </array>
    <key>Status Item</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save it in ~/Library/Application Support/Textpander/Settings.textpander and you're good to go.

Enjy yr new-fnd frdm t mspl.