Gadgetory

text messaging is the perfect way to communicate simple messages very quickly sometimes the messages can fly by so fast and furious that it can be hard to keep up I'm Donald bell for CNN com I'm trying to stay in touch with the cnet team during the madness of a trade show or convention the only way I can keep on top of it all is to use custom shortcuts for common phrases one example I'm all too familiar with is when I'm running late I want to warn people but I'm already stressed out and I don't want to waste any more time pecking away at the keyboard so I have my phone set so I can just type the letters are l and the phrase running late pops right up I hit the spacebar I hit Send and my conscience is clear on the iphone here i set this up by going to settings general keyboard and shortcuts by default Apple includes a shortcut for on my way if you type the letters OMW that feels a little too dramatic you can remove the ! and hit save to make a new shortcut hit the Add button type the full phrase you want to make a shortcut for and then put the shortcut beneath it some other common shortcuts include BRB for be right back THX for thanks or mp4 no problem making a shortcut for your email address can also be a big time saver these shortcuts work in text messages but you can also use them for emails or any place where the keyboard is used and you want to save some time now if you're on an Android smartphone finding this setting is going to differ depending on what version of Android you have for example on the galaxy s3 here from Samsung I would bring up the keyboard hit the gear for keyboard settings make sure the predictive texts which is switched on then tap the phrase predictive text scroll down to the bottom then select auto substitution list there's a fairly extensive list already here but you can add your own by tapping the plus button just like we did with the iphone so there you go that's my favorite way to stay on top of text messages when I'm at a trade show in every second counts for more how to's like this visit how to cnet.com for cnet I'm Donald Bell you