Text Expansion utilities monitor your typing and trigger a set of rules when you type a predefined phrase or key combination. When you type those predefined phrases, the utility replaces your short version and replaces it with a longer phrase without requiring you to type the entire thing. This is very helpful for those that type the same things over and over again such as a canned email response an email signature or even a common word or phrase. Here is a YouTube video of Text Expansion in action.
Here are several text expansion utilities
My personal favorite: Texter
It’s an open source, free, and has very powerful scripting support included. Some have reported issues/bugs in Windows 7. I personally haven’t run into any issues with it.
PhaseExpress
Here is another free utility that works great in Windows 7. The standard edition is free for personal use, but it has an internal word list that will nag you if you try and use rules containing phrases like “your order.”
AutoHotkey Hotstrings
This is for more advanced users who are well versed in writing scripts.
