TextExpander: Survey says…

TextExpander survey! I expected that–we know you love TextExpander and have lots of opinions on how it can be even more useful. We’ve pulled together an excellent list of new features we’re going to work on. Of course the list is top secret, but I can tell you that as a TextExpander user myself, I am very excited about TextExpander 2. I can share some interesting tidbits about TextExpander users. Most of you have modest size libraries (42% said they had less than 50 snippets) and have so far expanded fewer than 1000 snippets (60%). But there are power users: 10% have more than 250 snippets and 9% have expanded 5000+ snippets. The most commonly-used snippets were “words or short phrases” (63% use them “a lot”), followed by “personal info” (49%) and “email signatures” (44%). 72% of you have your snippets expand automatically rather than using a delimiter character. Whenever I create a user survey about current features, I always include the option “I did not know I could do that.” I don’t want people to say they’ve “never” used a feature when the truth is they don’t even know about it. Based on the response to this survey, we have to do a better job getting out the word on some of TextExpander’s most useful features, including: support for rich text formatting, images, and built-in macros like date, time, cursor positioning, etc. (Date was by far the most used built-in macro with 61% reporting using it, nested snippets was the least used at 9%.) So look for even more tip emails, FAQs and tutorials when TextExpander 2 is launched. No survey is complete without a question about user satisfaction. And we’re happy to learn that TextExpander users are generally a satisfied bunch. 93% of you described yourselves as “very satisfied” or “satisfied.” Here’s to winning over the other 7% with TextExpander 2!