Set up Text substitution in Mac OS X

Using Text Substitution, you can easily write any special character or symbol like ™ or ® just by typing something like TM or (r). You can adjust this and set your own, and it’s easy to configure:

* Go to the Apple menu and down to “System Preferences”
* Click the “Language & Text” preference pane
* Click on the “Text” tab
* Adjust text to replace with a symbol or other text, add more text to replace by hitting the + button

For example, I set “OXD” to be replaced with “OS X Daily”, so anytime I type OXD and hit space the text will be replaced.

Now here comes the interesting part, the Text Substitution feature is not enabled by default in many Mac OS X applications and it has to be manually enabled on a per application basis. This is easy enough, but oddly Apple has named it something different once inside the application, it’s called “Text Replacement”, and here’s how to enable it:

* In most cocoa applications, open the “Edit” menu and scroll down to “Substitutions”
* Select “Text Replacement” and a check will appear next to it in the submenu, signifying text replacement is enabled for that application
* Now just type a shortcut that you had set earlier and your text will be replaced with the substitution set within the System Preferences

Text substitution / replacement is a really helpful feature, and I hope Apple allows you to enable it across all applications in future versions of Mac OS X with a simple ‘Enable for all applications’ switch within the Language & Text system prefs.