Universal Plain-Text Templates

Using templates is a major time-saver for those of us who need to create the same, or at least highly similar documents over and over again. But what do you do if a specific application does not support templates? As long as you're handling text files, there's a solution that works universally across your Mac.

That solution is based on using a piece of software which, for lack of a better name, may be tagged "automatic text replacement utility." What it does is simple, yet powerful: whenever you type a word for which you have defined a replacement text, the software replaces the former with the latter. So, instead of typing "http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/mac", you merely type "odmm", and the software will replace that string with the URL -- makes for a lot less typing and a lot fewer typos, and it works in every text-editing application on your Mac.

From Snippets to Document Templates

The first time I heard about this kind of software was through a post on 43Folders, in which Merlin Mann describes a few examples of how to use this software with "snippet" definitions for links, dates, etc. But why stop there? If this works for longer text snippets and text blocks, why not use it for whole documents, too?

Here's a quick real-world example, then, for how you can use this type of software to create universal, system-wide templates for whole text documents.

Real-World Example: Tracking Article Ideas

As a writer, I need to capture article ideas and pitch them to my editors. If they like an idea, I'll go ahead and actually start writing. To make this process easier to track and to have all the required information in one place, I'm using notes in Yojimbo, one for each article idea, that follow this outline:

  SUGGESTED TITLE

  TEASER / INTRO

  WHY PEOPLE WILL READ THIS

  PITCH TRACKING  
  Date    Publication    Sold    Copy Submitted    Published    Invoiced

  ARTICLE BRAINSTORM

Now, here's the problem: Yojimbo does not support templates. So, what I could do to make creating such notes simpler is to create a sort of template note, and whenever inspiration strikes with a fresh topic idea, I would bring Yojimbo to the front, go find that template note, copy its contents (as Yojimbo does not have a "duplicate note" command), create a new note, paste in the contents -- and hope that the idea for that new article is still lingering somewhere in the back of my gray matter.

What I do instead, is go to Yojimbo and create a new note, type "tplai" (think "TemPLate for Article Ideas"), and just start typing my idea into the template. That's because I defined "tplai" as a shortcut in TextExpander, so that whenever I type that five-letter word in whatever text entry field, TextExpander will replace it with the complete template text.

"In whatever text entry field" means that, for example, this will also work with Yojimbo's Quick Input Panel: hit F8 to bring up the panel, type "tplai," and I'm all set to capture a new idea.

Just in case you're wondering: the reason for putting the brainstorm section at the bottom of that template is so I can append additional tidbits without even opening the note, courtesy of Yojimbo's "Append Text" action for Quicksilver, but that's probably another blog post altogether. Speaking of Quicksilver, though...

Yet Another Piece of "How Could I Ever Live Without It" Software

The thing that these "automatic text replacement utilities" have in common with Quicksilver is this: once you've integrated them into your daily work routines, you'll miss them instantly when working on a computer that doesn't have them installed, and using TextExpander for full text document templates makes it even more valuable.

Want to try it out yourself? Your options on the Mac are TextExpander, Typinator and TypeIt4Me, all of which share similar capabilities, a price tag of about $30 each, as well as the shareware distribution model, so you can give all of them a try before you choose your favorite.

Oh, so you are already using one of these to simplify your daily workflows? We'd love to hear how, so please share your tips and tricks with us in the comments below or, even better, in our forum discussion on this topic.