How many times has Word’s AutoCorrect feature saved your bacon? Or how much time has Word’s AutoText feature saved you with typing repetitive phrases through the judicious use of a shortcut or two? Both tools are essential parts of Word, but of course you can’t actually make use of them outside of Office, which is rather annoying.

Thankfully there are third-party tools that promise to provide similar functionality across your entire computer, but many are trialware or hobbled for personal use. WordExpander – from the makers of PhraseExpress - has no such limitations. It’s designed to sit in the background and provide both features in any application you’re using: basic text editors, your email program, and so on and so forth. Make a mistake, and it’s corrected automatically; start typing one of your AutoText shortcuts and up to five suggestions are displayed as you type – press [Shift] to accept one of the phrases and it’s inserted automatically.

You’ll need to set things up first: WordExpander supports both Phrase (AutoText) and AutoCorrect libraries of any number, but none are set up by default. You can import lists in .txt and .csv format, but there’s no easy way to export your AutoCorrect list in Word and import that. Thankfully Bartel Media does thoughtfully provide an English AutoCorrect plain text file – create a new AutoCorrect library and click the Download Libraries button to access it via your web browser.

You can manage as many Phrase and AutoCorrect libraries as you want – the configuration program adopts a ribbon interface and is straightforward to navigate. It all adds up to a straightforward, unfussy tool that could save you serious time when you’re next about to embark on some repetitive typing.