Text Macros

In any note field in Abacus, you can use text macros. Text macros are “abbreviations” that you can use to reduce typing effort.

To use a text macro, type it in the note and then expand it into text by pressing F5 or the space bar. (See the "Expanding Text Macros" section for more information.)

Text Macros

Following is a list of text macros you can use.

NOTE: Text macros are not case-sensitive.

Text Macro	Inserts
addr	Related name's address
court or crt (for event notes only)	Court's street address (if the linked matter has a court set)
Ctrl+F5	Today's date and time
fi	file:///
ht	http://
phones or phns	Related name's phone numbers
Shift+F5	Today's date

Expanding Text Macros

There are two methods you can use to expand text macros:

• Use the F5 key

• Use the spacebar

Note that the spacebar option has to be turned on in User Preferences before you can use it. Select File > Setup > User Preferences. In the User Preferences window’s User Info tab, check Expand text macros with SpaceBar.

To expand a text macro, place the cursor at the end of the text macro and press the F5 key or the spacebar (if this option is turned on). The text macro is replaced with the associated text and you can continue typing. If there is a question about the text macro, a browse window of text macros appears for you to add or edit your own abbreviations.

Importing Small Files

The text replacement for text macros is normally limited to 50 characters. If you want longer passages from a text macro (some users set up small “templates” with several lines of text), you can set the description to identify a small text file that contains your text (the size limit is 6,000 bytes). For example, create a macro called NoteForm. The description must be in the form of “FILE:<FileName>", so enter: FILE:c:\Abacus\NoteForm.txt.

To use it, edit a note and type NoteForm, then expand the text macro. “NoteForm” will be replaced by the contents of the file c:\abacus\noteform.txt.