3 exceptional text expansion tools for Windows

Do you find yourself typing the same things over and over?

If the answer is yes — and if you type enough text during the workweek, it almost certainly will be — I’d highly recommend you install a text expansion application. These text shortcut tools are a must-have productivity upgrade for many knowledge workers, and they can even help you at home. If you haven’t given one a go yet, you’re missing out.

There are am wide variety of text expanders to choose from. Many are paid tools intended for businesses, complete with pricey subscriptions and features that only make sense for large teams and complex professional workflows.

(These types of apps are particularly relevant in the PC arena; text shortcut tricks are built into Android phones and Apple devices, but on Windows, you need a third-party application to take advantage of them.)

I’ll cover the text expanders I recommend — easy-to-use, free solutions for Windows PCs. If your workplace pays for a different one, that’s great. Otherwise, I suggest starting with one of the options here.

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Beeftext: A free Windows text expander

Up first is Beeftext, a completely free, open-source, and as-simple-as-it-gets text expansion tool for Windows PCs. My colleague Jared Newman recommended it at PCWorld — and for good reason.

After installing and launching Beeftext, you’ll see a little red “Bt” icon in your system tray. Open it to get started.

In Beeftext, combos are text expansion shortcuts. You’ll click Combos > New to create a new one. Then, you’ll just need to enter a Snippet and a Keyword. When you type the keyword in any application, Beeftext will replace it with the snippet.

For example, you might want to try creating the keyword /add and specifying your address. Then, you can type that keyword in any application on your PC to quickly insert your address.

While creating a combo, you just need to fill in the “Snippet” and “Keyword” boxes.Chris Hoffman, IDG

It’s really that simple. You could enter /# and associate that with your phone number. You don’t have to use a slash — it’s just an easy way to create memorable shortcuts that you won’t type accidentally.

You can do a lot with this type of tool. If you often find yourself responding to a customer, client, or even just a friend with a specific message, you might create a snippet for that message so you can quickly type it in emails. If you often end up inserting some kind of signature or disclaimer message, you might create a snippet for that. It’s really up to you.

Autocorrect: Built right into Office apps

It’s worth noting that Office apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook have a text-expansion-style feature built right into them. It will only work inside those Office apps. But, if you only need this feature while working in those specific applications, it’s perfect. And it might be the only solution for workers who can’t install anything else on their PCs.

First, open the application you want to use — such as Microsoft Word or OneNote. Click the “File” menu and select “Options.”  Click the “Proofing” option in the left sidebar, and then click the “AutoCorrect Options” button.

The AutoCorrect window will appear. Under “Replace text as you type,” add something you want to replace at the left and the text you want to replace it with at the right. Then, click the “Add” button to add it to the list, and click “OK.”

For example, as in the above example, you could enter /add and have Office replace that text with your address when you type it.

AutoCorrect is incredibly convenient. I wish it worked elsewhere in Windows, too!Chris Hoffman, IDG

Want to use formatted text — or text with multiple lines? Type some text in your document, and then select it with your mouse. Then, click File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options. The text you selected will be prefilled there, and you can associate a text shortcut with it.

Text Blaze: An extension for Chrome and Edge

Last but not least, Text Blaze is another exceptional option for Windows-based text replacement. (We use this application at our newsletter-focused small business The Intelligence.) While it’s not completely free, it does offer a free plan for individuals. That plan gives you up to 20 snippets, which is plenty for many people.

Text Blaze installs right in modern browsers like Chrome and Edge as a browser extension. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with Firefox.) It’s a speedy and simple way to quickly replace text in your browser — I heartily recommend it.

Text Blaze lets you specify a “shortcut” that will be replaced by a “snippet” when you type It on any web page in your browser.Chris Hoffman, IDG

On the business front, the tool has some useful features that work well for our team, such as sharing snippets with other people and dynamically entering information in snippets. That’s more than many users will need, though. The paid subscription won’t be necessary if you just want some quick text shortcuts in Google Chrome for your own use.

Text Blaze does have a Windows application, too — but, in my experience, it works better and faster as a Chrome extension.

More text expansion options for Windows PCs

With all the text expansion tools available, it’s hard to narrow the list. If you do some web searches, you’ll see a lot of other similar options. Here are a few other popular possibilities and what you need to know about them — including why they didn’t earn one of my top recommendations:

Espanso is a completely free and open-source text expander that works on Windows as well as other platforms. However, it doesn’t have a convenient graphical interface, so you’ll have to write out your “matches” and “replaces” in a text editor. If that works for you, go right ahead — it will be the tool of choice for many geeks.

TextExpander is incredibly polished and feature-filled. But this tool doesn’t have a free version. While it might be a great fit for some businesses who want to use the sharing functionality with their team, the $40/year subscription here isn’t a great fit for the average individual.

Phrase Express is another application with a long history. But, starting at $100 per license, it’s probably not the ideal choice for most people.

I can’t emphasize enough: There are many other text expansion tools that’ll work with Windows. Lots of them likely work well, too, but most aren’t free or have other issues that make them not-entirely-optimal choices for most common purposes.

Bonus: Pin text to Clipboard History in Windows

Don’t want to install a text expander? You can also “pin” items to your clipboard history in either Windows 11 or Windows 10. To open it, press Windows+V and choose to enable clipboard history if you haven’t already done so.

Then, after copying some text or an image to your clipboard, you can press Windows+V and use the “pin” option to save it to your clipboard history for later. You can then press Windows+V in the future and select a pinned item to quickly paste it.

The Clipboard History tool is useful for both text and images.Chris Hoffman, IDG

It’s not a text expander, exactly — but it is a way to quickly insert some saved text. And it’s that end result that counts the most.

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