AUTOTEXT FUNCTION - WICHTIG!

[Adeckwatt]

Greetings.

I wrote about the problem with typing I had noticed in TextMaker Free 2018 here (https://forum.softmaker.com/viewtopic.p ... 318#p64318), hope this issue was fixed in TextMaker 2021, unfortunately I have no time testing this myself at the moment.

Still I go further in optimizing typing in text processors for Windows 10 Home. The thing is I try to use autotext programms which help enter large amounts of text faster. I use AutoHotKey software which works in the following way: I create a script file, which contains certain abbreviations and their deciphered forms, so that when I type, for example, "usa" the programm types "United States of America" instead. Again I tried to use AutoHotKey and TextMaker 2018 and later 2021 Beta (TextMaker Professional 2021 - Beta (rev S1010.0518) 64bit).

So what`s about TextMaker 2021? There are actually two problems:

1. I haven`t found autotext menu in TextMaker at all, and it would be great if such functionality was added. Note that Word has this autotext feature, but it is done in such a cumbersome way that a user has to enter one word per time, no macroses can be used to speed up the process of creating a base of frequently used words and phrases, while autotext programms like AutoHotKey enable editing their script files with Notepad and other tools which is easy and fast to use. Moreover, as it turned out, Word deliberately slows down autotext programms, forcing to use its own autotext menu, which is uncomfortable.

2. There is a conflict between TextMaker 2018 & 2021 and AutoHotKey as well. The problem is the process of converting abbreviation to its full form is slow and looks a bit weird. I have made two .gif-files for you to compare the way it functions in TextMaker 2021 and OpenOffice 4.1.7 and see the difference.

I wish you and your programm all the best and hope I will be able to migrate to it one day.

From Russia with love

[SuperTech]

Thanks for your suggestion. I checked the past issue in TextMaker 2021 and I didn't feel any slowness or lag while typing.

We already have this feature in TextMaker which is called SmartText which is more advanced than other third-party software, so you will not have to use third-party software for this.

TextMaker's SmartText feature can save you a lot of work: you can define SmartText entries for frequently needed phrases and then select them out in your text quickly and easily.

For example, create a SmartText entry called "req" with the content "We have thankfully received your request". Now you can call out this SmartText entry at any time. Simply type "req" in the text and then press the space bar or the Enter key↵ or a punctuation mark. Immediately "req" will be replaced by "we have received your request thankfully".

In this way, you can create your personal "computer steno" with TextMaker and save a lot of time when typing.

In this section, you will learn details about TextMaker's SmartText feature, including the following:

Creating SmartText entries

New SmartText entries can be created via a dialog-control from the Insert | group Text | SmartText ribbon command or via the spell check. Each SmartText entry must have a name (e.g. "req") and the desired content (e.g. "We thank you for your request").

You can define formatting also for this content so whenever you will type that name the content will be there with its pre-defined format.

Inserting SmartText entries

If the option Expand SmartText entries is enabled in the program settings, SmartText entries can be inserted very easily: To do this, type the name of the SmartText entry and then the space bar or the Enter key↵ or a punctuation mark. The name will be immediately replaced by the content of the SmartText entry.

Alternatively, blocks can be inserted manually with the Insert | group Text | SmartText ribbon command.

Editing SmartText entries

With the Insert | group Text | SmartText ribbon command you can not only create new SmartText entries but also edit, format, rename or delete existing ones.

You can check more information regarding this in our help section.

I could not reproduce the issue of AutoHotKey as it was working fine with TextMaker 2021 but I have forwarded the details of the issue to our development team.