For years I thought it would be great to just type a few letters and have whole sentences pop up. I never got around to setting that up on my computer, though it’s nearly always been available.

Currently though, I find myself typing a number of the same things, both when I’m home blogging (for example my name, email and URL), and at work (repetitive statements, like teachers had for grade reports back in the day). So I finally decided it was time.

My program of choice is AutoHotKey (thanks Lifehacker). With a simple script I can turn “af” into “Ariah Fine” and much much more.

1. Download AutoHotKey
2. right click and select ‘new’->’AutoHotkey Script’ from the menu.
3. Now insert this string:
   :oc:af::Ariah Fine
   and then copy that pattern to insert whatever else you’d like to (oc means hotstring).
4. Now for fancier insert:
   :oc:gws::^+{Left}^xGet Well Soon, ^v{BS}{!}
   This will turn this: ‘Suzy gws’ into ‘Get Well Soon, Suzy!’
   Have fun changing that around.
5. That should be plenty to get you started. Once your done just save and close and then double click your script and it’ll show up in the system tray. Enjoy!