AceType

AceType is a special AceText feature that enables you to quickly paste a clip into an application, and continue working with that application after pasting. The default hotkey is Win+Alt+A. Press this hotkey while working with an application other than AceText. AceText will pop up. If you like to use the mouse, right-click on the AceText tray icon and select AceType from the menu.

You will notice that after activating AceType, the AceText window looks a bit different. Above the list with clips in the collection, a highlighted AceType field appears. Enter the AceType abbreviation of the clip you want. As you enter the abbreviation, the list of clips in the collection is filtered. It will only show clips that have an abbreviation starting with the same characters as the ones you typed. As soon as you activate AceType, the labels of the clips in the list are prefixed with their abbreviations. Clips that do not have an abbreviation are hidden. If you forgot the exact abbreviation of a clip, you can easily look it up. While typing the abbreviation, you can press Ctrl+Arrow Up or Ctrl+Arrow Down on the keyboard to select one of the clips in the list, without typing in (the remainder of) its abbreviation. If none of the clips have an abbreviation starting with the characters you entered then AceText ignores as many characters at the end of the abbreviation you’re looking up as needed to be able to show at least one clip that starts with the remaining characters.

Press the Enter key on the keyboard to confirm the selection. If the clip contains parameters, AceText substitutes them and prompts if needed. The clip is then pasted directly into the application that was active when you initiated AceType. Press the Escape key to cancel AceType. Either way, AceText resurfaces the application that was active when you initiated AcePaste, so you can continue working straight away.

If you press the AceType hotkey while AceText has keyboard focus, you can look up a clip in the same way. But when you confirm the selection with the Enter key, the clip is not sent to another application.

Obviously, AceType is only useful if you have previously assigned memorable abbreviations to your clips. This way, you can easily and even blindly insert standard chunks of texts while typing. When replying to email, for example, instead of typing the same “thank you for your purchase” phrase over and over again, store the phrase into a clip with an abbreviation of “ty”. Then you can instantly add the phrase while typing. Just press Win+Alt+A, T, Y, Enter and continue typing the rest of the email. Besides saving you the time to type in the same phrase, AceType enables you to make the phrase much lengthier or polished. Since you need to type it only once into AceText, you can spend 5 minutes writing a very nice thank you message, and then instantly replicate it whenever you answer an email message. Your correspondents will be impressed.

By default, AceText tries to paste into the target application by placing the clip on the clipboard and simulating the Ctrl+V key combination. If you want to use AceType with an application that pastes differently, or can only accept keyboard input, you can configure that application in the Applications Preferences.

See Look up and Reuse Text to learn how to use AceText.