#iphonelifehacks textreplacement iOSHacks iphone iOS lifehacks

[surisarabee-blog]

iPhone Life Hacks: Text Replacement

Text Replacement (also known as text expansion) is a process where you type in a short snippet/shortcut and it’s automatically expanded to a predefined text.

To set up your first snippet on your iPad, iPod or iPhone go to your Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement

Once in text replacement you will see a + sign in the top right hand corner. Select this + sign and it will bring you to the following page to add a snippet.

From here you can create any text replacement you want. Now I will show you how my personal phone is set up.

1. Contact information

Online Forms

While filling out online forms, I have my replacements set up so 01 is my first name, 02 is my last name, 03 is the first line of my address, 04 is my city, 05 State, 06 Zip Code.

Other information that I have in my text replacement is information I have to type out often. My email addresses, which I have many. The link to my photography page on facebook, my pinterest account page, phone numbers, my full address, my PO Box, and common websites I need at an arms reach.

I even have a couple pre-filled messages to let someone know I am busy at the moment and will need to reply to them later. 

It may seem like a long process to get these set up, but imagine the time and keystrokes you will save having all this information just stored!

Next: Emojis

Emojis are a short click away, yes, but I find sometimes if they are not on my most commonly used (front) page, it can take a second to find the one I want to use. I will still use the list from time to time, but I find I type out the most common ones.

Say you are writing an email and either not sure if the smiley will actually show up, or you want it to just be a simple :) - if you have your predictive text on, you can just click the first box and it will keep the text version of the smiley. (See Below)

Next I will show you my list of other text replacements I have. It puts them in alphabetical order so lets start with A.

If you misspell a word enough times, auto correct will stop changing them. I like to put commonly misspelled words in my text replacement for example compound words like alright or everyday are not the proper spelling of all right and every day.

ASAP and BTW are sometimes better as acronyms. That’s where you can click on the predictive text to keep them as acronyms.

Words like ‘definitely’ are sometimes hard for me to remember how to spell, so I like creating a text replacement like deff to automatically insert the word.

My DMV snippet is very nice for when I don’t want to text and drive, but don’t want someone to think I am purposefully ignoring them. Before I start my drive I type a quick DMV in each chat and get back to them later.

Now we are on to ducking. Not sure why anyone would say ducking, but it is pretty frustrating when you are trying to write your favorite colorful word and iOS says NOPE.

For E we have eta = it has been useful a couple times, and another commonly misspelled compound word that auto correct does not pick up.

Under F we have all the crazy things auto correct does not pick up and change to our favorite curse word.

For G we have one I never use, Good Luck, and one that I use about 5 times a day, Goodnight.

People from my home town know that GP means Grants Pass. Those who are not, have no idea so I added the long version, Grants Pass.

Now the H’s are my favorite and almost the best reason to have text replacement.

For I we have idk and ikr which most people who text enough can decipher but in case I am talking to an elder who is not familiar with them, text replacement writes it out for me.

K & L have some good ones. Another commonly misspelled compound word. Lastnight is not a word in case you didn't know. If you are like me and like lmao over Lmao you can use these text replacements, although my iOS doesn’t always pick it up.

Good Morning is a good one if you are particular about making the M in morning capitalized. We have nom nom nom and no problem. For O we have a couple semi useful ones. Ore and PDX I use every day.

This list (above) is a little experiment of mine to see if QQ is a good letter to choose for this list, or if I can remember the nic names I made for each emoji.

Recieve - a word I can never remember how to spell, and I have misspelled it so many times auto correct does not pick up on it anymore. Ridiculous is another word I will always try to spell rediculous, so hopefully this is training me to spell it the correct way.

Here for S we have my favorite shrugging guy, and for T a few really useful ones. Tho is an informal version of though and the same goes for thru and through.

The W’s come in handy frequently.

Finally we have the Z’s. Sometimes I am on my phone until the last second I am awake, so without wanting to leave whoever I am texting hanging, a quick zzzz will let them know that when i stop texting, it is because I fell asleep.

I hope you enjoyed my text replacement tutorial and saw some that you can use in your daily lives to make your texting shorter. If you think of any good ones or want to tell me how you liked this tutorial feel free to comment below! Thank you!!