Mac Law Students

As students and lawyers we often find ourselves shackled to the keyboard – typing the same phrases, legal jargon, contract clauses, email signatures and so on, over and over. The faster we type the more errors that we produce. The more errors the more proof reading the more time that is wasted – and as the old adage goes – “time is money”.

TypeIt4Me is a solution to all this nauseating error producing repetition. If you are not using TypeIt4Me than you are working on four cylinders instead of six. For those of us that can’t touch-type TypeIt4Me is a godsend.

TypeIt4Me is a shareware application for Macs. Essentially it works as your own personal “typing assistant.” You pre-define abbreviations that make sense to you and TypeIt4Me will expand them for you, on the fly, as you type. It sits in the background eagerly watching everything you type and when it sees you type an abbreviation, it expands it automatically for you.

How Does It Work?

First you define your abbreviations and what they should expand to. You then define the ‘triggers’. These are the keystrokes that instruct TypeIt4Me to expand an abbreviation that you have typed. Typically your triggers will be SPACE, RETURN and full-stop (.) – however you can define more triggers if you desire.

For example, if I type pl and hit the space bar, pl is expanded to “plaintiff” If I type rp and hit the return key, rp expands to “registered proprietor.”

This simple function is all that TypeIt4Me does. However, TypeIt4Me’s simplicity disguises its awesome power.

How Will It Help Me?

• Legal Terms: how often do you type “plaintiff”, “defendant”, “contract” and “legislation”? Too often to count? I have abbreviated these words to pl, df, k and legn respectively.
• Legislation: sick of typing the full titles of legislation? For example, I have set ep&a to expand to “Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW).” Notice how TypeIt4Me allows me to set the title and year of the Act to appear in italics and the jurisdiction left unformatted. This is also very useful for latin terms which I always define to expand in italics (e.g, lld expands to “lex loci delicti”).
• Spelling Mistakes: with TypeIt4Me you can add Microsoft Word’s autocorrect feature to all applications. If you keep making the same spelling mistakes then create an abbreviation for the mistake that expands to the correct spelling. For example, set teh to expand to “the”, and ame to expand to “same”.
• Short Phrases: Do you commonly end your emails and letters with “Yours faithfully” or “With best regards”? Why not abbreviate them to yrsf and wbr?
• Email Signature: I have set #sig to expand to my email signature which is formatted with bold and coloured text.
• Images: You can also include images in your expansions. For example, you could scan a copy of your signature, create an abbreviation for it and be able to easily place it at the end of any document.
• Dates and Times: TypeIt4Me also works with dates and times. I use this function to add a date prefix (e.g, 070629 01:37:26) to the filenames of my documents to keep them in order.
• The Options are Endless: Define abbreviations for your postal address(es), phone numbers, library card number, student number etc…

Abbreviations can be up to 32,000 characters long and there is no limit to how many abbreviations that you can have. I currently have over 400 and add more almost every day. I added a few more while typing this review.

My typing speed and accuracy has improved dramatically in the three months I have been using TypeIt4Me. Keeping pace with my lecturers’ speech in class is a breeze. Typing 2,000 word assignments is no longer a time consuming bore. In short, I couldn’t live without it.

Features

• TypeIt4Me Works in All Applications: I repeat – ALL applications! TypeIt4Me will work in Word, Safari, Mail, iChat – you name it. If you only want TypeIt4Me to work in certain applications and not others, this can be set in TypeIt4Me’s preferences.
• TypeIt4Me’s Killer Feature is the Strip ’s’ for plurals Option: Setting this option in TypeIt4Me’s preference pane will strip an ’s’ at the end of any abbreviation that you type before looking it up in the abbreviation data file. This means that you do not have to define an abbreviation for both the plural and singular version of an abbreviation. Simply create an abbreviation for the singular version of the word and TypeIt4Me will do the rest. For example, when I type applicatn (followed by a trigger), TypeIt4Me looks up the abbreviation for applicatn (which expands to “application”) and will add the ’s’ to the end of the expanded word.
• Shift+Space: If you don’t want an abbreviation to be expanded, simply follow it with SHIFT+SPACE instead of your normal trigger(s). This easy keyboard shortcut will not interrupt your natural typing. If you wish to disable triggers altogether you easily select the “Pause” option from TypeIt4Me’s menubar icon.

Tips and Tricks

• Start Slow: The key to effectively using TypeIt4Me is to built your data file one abbreviation at a time. TypeIt4Me is useful only if you can remember the abbreviations that you have set. If you have to stop and look up an abbreviation than TypeIt4Me’s productivity enhancing capabilities become redundant. My advice is to create only abbreviations for words that you type multiple times in, say, a thirty minute period.
• Add Quicksilver: Opening up TypeIt4Me’s preference dialog every time I wish to add a new abbreviation is time consuming. I have streamlined the process using Quicksilver’s “Append to …” function to add any new abbreviations to a plain-text file (called “ABBS.txt”) that sits on my Desktop. For example, here is how I would add the abbreviation cvnt/ee for the word “covenantee” to my “ABBS.txt” file.
  1. Invoke Quicksilver (by default, ?+SPACE).
  2. Hit “.” to start typing in the variable input field.
  3. Type “cvnt/ee = covenantee”.
  4. Hit the TAB key to select the next pane.
  5. Type “APP” and Quicksilver should display “Append to …”
  6. Type “ABBS” to select the “ABBS.txt” file.
  7. Hit ENTER.

I run through this procedure every time a new abbreviation comes to mind – usually during a lecture or while typing an essay. At the end of the day I go through the “ABBS.txt” file and add the new abbreviations to TypeIt4Me. This process, besides being very quick, does not disrupt or distract me from my workflow.

[To use this Quicksilver function your text file must be a plain text file, must be part of your Quicksilver catalogue, and must have the ".txt" extension. For more information see 43folders.]

• and … Voilà! Please take a look at my abbreviations file (PDF) to give you an idea where to start and how TypeIt4Me works in practice for a law student.

Suggestions for Improvement

While I am generally very happy with TypeIt4Me there are a for improvements that would make it even more useful.

1. Multiple Abbreviations Files: TypeIt4Me allows you to have multiple abbreviation files. However, you cannot expand abbreviations from two or more abbreviation files at the same time. You cannot use multiple abbreviation files in the same application. I would like to have multiple abbreviation files – one file for legal abbreviations, another for spelling mistakes, and a third for non-legal abbreviations – and be able to use abbreviations from all three files simultaneously. [09 July 07 - Ed. note: Riccardo Ettore, creator of TypeIt4Me, explains in the comments below that this feature actually does exist.]
2. Counter: I would love to see TypeIt4Me include some form of counter that records how many times each abbreviation has been expanded. I could then see which are my most often expanded abbreviations and which I rarely use and should be culled. TextExpander, a competitor, has a feature in its preference pane that shows how much time has been saved by its use. I would like to see a similar feature in TypeIt4Me.

Conclusion

Once you start using TypeIt4Me you won’t want to go back. It is very addictive. I don’t think I could function without it. Whenever I have to use another computer without TypeIt4Me I cringe in pain. As a productivity tool it is on equal footing with Quicksilver. Don’t be a slave to your keyboard anymore – let TypeIt4Me doing your typing for you.

TypeIt4Me costs $14US (academic price) from Ettore Software.