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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Quicksilver: Append to a text file from _anywhere_

Appending to a txt file in QS

Quicksilver makes it easy to add new lines to a txt file without even opening an application. Here’s an example of how you might add “coffee” to your “groceries.txt” list.

  1. Invoke QS (usu. “CMD-space”)
  2. Hit “.” to start typing in the variable input field
  3. Type “coffee”
  4. Tab to the next pane
  5. Type “APP” (or whatever it takes to pull up “Append Text To…”)
  6. Tab to the next pane
  7. Type “GROC” or surf to your running “groceries.txt” file
  8. Hit enter
  9. You’re done
  10. Optionally, note that after you’ve appended this, the window autopops with the destination file (“groceries.txt”) ready to open for inspection.
  • Hint: You can add carriage returns in the input field by typing option-return.
  • Hint: To place your new text at the beginning of a txt document, rather than the end, type “PREP” (or whatever it takes to pull up “Prepend Text To…”) in step 5 above.

(N.B.: Watch this space for an upcoming series of Quicksilver features—from setup through power user tricks)

Update (9/12): New Quicksilver release brings “Interface and stability enhancements.” Also, Append/Prepend is now available in “Beta” mode. Yay.

About Merlin

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Bio

Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who created the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today, Back to Work, and Kung Fu Grippe. Also? He’s writing this book, he lives with this face, he suffers from this hair, he answers these questions, and he’s had this life. So far.

Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written in the past few years is an essay entitled, “Cranking.”

 
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