A writer friend uses Word for writing but he had a genius idea: for the most common words: “but”, “like”, “that”, etc. He devised a system that when he writes any of those words, the word will immediately be “autocorrected” with XXX at the end of the word- “Macros” is what he said he used. Is it possible to use something similar in Scrivener? Ideas
Using macros in Word to do this is a bit of overkill, but no matter…
Best way to start would be to use Apple’s standard text replacement feature. See Apple Icon → System Preferences → Keyboard, Tab Text and put in what you want to “replace” then “with”.
Scrivener has compile features to replace text, but I don’t think you are looking for that. But if that scratches your itch look there also.
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If you’re on MacOS, you can easily set up the same functionality using Keyboard Maestro, a macro program for the Mac.
Using a “string trigger,” you can teach KM to fire a macro whenever you type “but”, “like”, “that”, etc.
For example, I have macros that autocorrect common typos like “teh” and a lower case “i” by itself.
As I have mentioned before, I consider KM to be essential kit for working with Scrivener on the Mac.
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I can see a case for macros. Indeed long wanted SCrivener to have the AppleScript integration mooted many years ago. Or at the least follow pandoc (used for MM conversions) and use Lua.
But I do not understand the purpos of sticking XXX onto the end of common words. If it is to see how often one uses such words I would be using the Word Frequency feature of Project > Statistics then look at the Frequency column.
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Awesome, yes, I think that’s what I need, thanks!
Yes, that’s the idea. Thank you.
This how-to on building a “word highlighter” in Scrivener, that a wrote a little while ago, and may be of inspiration as an alternative. The idea is that rather than stomping on your text as you write it, throwing your flow and forcing you to resolve "X"s as you go, you passively highlight potentially problematic text instead—after you’re done writing. Sometimes an overused word is the right word to use, so you leave it.
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I’d use Keyboard Maestro to automagically give those words a style when they’re typed, rather than adding XXX or anything like that.
I was of exactly the same opinion - two years ago. Then I discovered BTT. I can’t imagine Scrivener without BTT. I still use KM, though.
In short, BTT costs half as much and can do twice as much as KM. Take a look at BTT. I wish someone had told me what I’m telling you now 
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Interesting discussion but, er… what is BTT?
Better Touch Tool.
Different strokes. I greatly prefer Keyboard Maestro. Some folks use both. YMMV.
@popcornflix Ah, ok, if you know it … then you’re not missing anything 
Why do you prefer KM?
Awesome, thank you very much. I’ll look into
that!
It’s very robust, the developer has a big brain and an equally big heart, and the user community is the best and most helpful usergroup I’ve ever encountered.
Interesting answer…
How do you know that? I’ll tell you what my point is in a minute. Just want to hear your answer first, if you don’t mind.
Asked and answered.
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I tried to do simple things in BTT a couple months ago. It didn’t work well, and I gave up on it. I’ve found KM to be not always clear to me, but much easier than BTT.
They’re meant for different levels of intervention, I think – BTT at a lower level, where you might want to repurpose caps_lock as forward_delete, for instance. That’s a lot easier to do with Karabiner, and KM can’t do it at all.