Typing Aids

 

This is going to be very short introduction of a software I have come across and find it enormously useful, to the extent that it has made me recommend this to others who are looking for similar solutions for typing – be it notes, thesis or just typing your usual stuff.

Often you encounter you use repeated phrases and long words which you get fed up of keying in again. I used to use a smart phone based on windows mobile and they had an inbuilt autocompleter  for words as I tapped letters for a quick SMS.

Now lately before exams as I review some of my earlier notes for quick editing and some summarization of topics, i least care about formatting etc and want things really fast as I brain storm. I don’t like short hand stuff when it comes to typing on the computer, thus it made me look out for a typing solution that was similar to what I had on PDAs and Smart phones.

After trying out a few softwares, I ended up with my preferences to LetMeType, and also FastFox Expander. Initially I was quite satisfied with FastFox, but there were a few things It couldn’t do, and eventually I came across LetMeType.

 

LetMeType

Helps you enter text. Running in the background, it analyses what you type. After some time it has collected enough information to guess a word after you have typed the first two or three letters. The list of common words you use is shown against numbers, to follow on with you expansion just hit the number key with corresponding word of your choice.

LetMeType is an open-source free software available for download. This is cool.

Download it here

 

Another that I liked was FastFox.
Unlike LetMeType it does not generate a list of words but infact automatically inserts a custom expansion to shorthand text just after you hit the space after keying in the shorthand text for the word/phrase you like to insert. You can also insert preformatted text, signature, phrases to predefined shorthand text you specify in the program. It is not similar to LetMeType.
It is not free, but a free-version is available.
download FastFox here

~ by Dr.Zhivago on January 25, 2009.