TextExpander tip: The Science Option
A great tip from Dr. Clint, who specializes in cell biology and biochemistry:
TextExpander (formerly released under the cooler name, Textpander) is a great application, and I could not imagine using my Mac without it.
As a scientist, I often have to enter symbols and greek letters. Under Mac OS X, entering symbols of any kind requires a tedious trip to the Character Palette, followed by searching for the your favorite “symbol-in-a-haystack.” Since TextExpander handles Unicode characters as well as plain text, I have created TextExpander tips for all my commonly used symbols.
For instance, to type the greek letter “alpha,” I type “åå” (option-a, option-a). TextExpander recognizes this unusual letter pair, and substitutes “α,” as nice as you please.
Keep up the good work!
Best wishes,
Clint
For us non-scientists, in case you are unfamiliar with alpha, pi, mu, etc., you can access them at Edit > Special Characters while adding a new snippet in TextExpander.
Remember, we are always looking for great user tips. Send them to me at jean@smileonmymac.com.