Built-in functions

Typinator includes built-in functions you can use inside expansions to transform text automatically.
They always start with a slash and look like this:

{/FunctionName parameters}

Text formatting

• {/Lowercase text} → makes text lowercase
  {/Lowercase Hello WORLD} → hello world
• {/Uppercase text} → makes text uppercase
  {/Uppercase Hello WORLD} → HELLO WORLD
• {/Capital text} → capitalizes each word
  {/Capital hello world} → Hello World

Tip: If an abbreviation consists of letters, you can also use the pop-up menu next to the abbreviation to specify how Typinator should handle the capitalization of the expansion. You can read more about case variations here. 

HTML helpers

• {/DecodeHTML text} → converts HTML entities to readable characters
  {/DecodeHTML Österreich} → Österreich
• {/EncodeHTML text} → converts reserved characters for HTML
  {/EncodeHTML Miller & Sons} → Miller & Sons

Useful tools

• {/Length text} → counts characters
  {/Length Hello} → 5
• {/Repeat n/text} → repeats text n times
  {/Repeat 3/Ho, /} → Ho, Ho, Ho,
• {/Unicode number} → inserts the Unicode character with the given character number
  {/Unicode 8984} → ⌘
  (You can enter multiple numbers separated by spaces or commas.)

Tip: If you are interested in the Unicode Character map, Popchar might be exactly what you need! Check it out!

Extracting parts of text

• {/Left n/any text} → returns the n leftmost characters of any text
  {/Left 3/Typinator/} → Typ
• {/Right n/any text} → returns the n rightmost characters of any text
  {/Right 3/Typinator/} → tor
• {/Mid start/n/any text} → returns n characters in the middle of any text, starting at start
  {/Mid 3/3/Typinator/} → pin

Replace & regex

• {/Replace /original/replacement//any text/} → replaces all occurrences of original in any text by replacement
  {/Replace /s/abra//scads/} → abracadabra

  This function can contain multiple original/replacement pairs, delimited by //, as in:
  {/Replace /1/one/2/two/3/three//1234} → onetwothree4

Tip: You can use the {/Replace} function to insert phrases depending on the time of the day. Check out this article to learn more!

• {/Regex /original/replacement//any text/}  → similar to /Replace, but with regular expressions
  {/Regex /([A-Z])([0-9])/$2$1//This is A1 quality./} → This is 1A quality.

Tip: When filling out online forms, you often copy and paste information from other sources. However, many forms require numbers to be entered in a specific format, for example without spaces or separators. The {/Regex} function can help you by automatically removing all non-digits from the text in the clipboard. Check out our tutorial!

Choose & conditions

• {/Choose x/text1/text2/text3/.../} → inserts one of the text items text1, text2, etc. 
  The first parameter (x) determines which item is chosen. x can be:
  • a number, which is taken as the index of the desired item:
    {/Choose 2/one/two/three/} → two
  • a regular expression pattern, which chooses the first matching item:
    {/Choose r/one/two/three/} → three (the first item containing “r”)
  • an asterisks, which chooses an arbitrary item:
    {/Choose */one/two/three/} → a random choice of “one”, “two”, or “three”
     
• {/Case /value/case1/result1/.../default result/} → compares the given value with “case values” and returns the corresponding result of the first match. If nothing matches, it uses the final value as the default result.
  {/Case /2/1/one/2/two/more/} → two

Tip: Use the {/Case} function to insert dates with an ordinal number. Check out this article for the tutorial.

Search & lList

• {/Count /pattern/text/} → counts matches
• {/Index n/pattern/text/} → returns the n-th match
• {/List /pattern/separator/text/} → lists all matches
• {/Any /pattern/text/} → returns a random match

Tip: The {/Any} function can help you if you want to insert random text without any programming knowledge. We have an article explaining this in detail, check it out! 

Other functions

• {/Extract /before/after//text/} → extracts text between markers
• {/Sort text} → sorts lines alphabetically
• {/URL http://...} → fetches a web page and inserts its content

Tip: If your text contains /, you can use another character instead (like :).

Let's combine it!

Built-in functions are most powerful when combined with other markers. The possibilities are virtually endless. Here are just a few examples that illustrate what you can do with these functions:

• {/Uppercase {clip}} → text from the clipboard, converted to upper case.
• {/Regex / +/ //{clip}/} → text from the clipboard, with multiple spaces removed.
• {/Replace /{{?Original}}/{{?Replacement}}//{clip}/} → asks for “Original” and “Replacement”, replaces all occurrences in the text found in the clipboard, and returns the resulting text.
• {/Count /[:upper:]{2,}+/{clip}/} → analyzes the contents of the clipboard and returns the number of words that contain only uppercase letters and are at least two letters long.
• {/Case /{{dayDelta}}/0/today/1/tomorrow/in {{dayDelta}} days/} → uses the {{dayDelta}} variable to generate a relative date (“today” for 0, “tomorrow” for 1, and “in x days” for all other values).

Tip: Check out this blog article, if you want to learn more about date calculations with Typinator.