My Text Replacement Does’t work properly on my MacBook Air M3

Question

Level 1

4 points

My Text Replacement Does’t work properly on my MacBook Air M3

Hi Guys! My text replacement works perfectly on my iPad but because I need a special extension for my job that iPad wasn’t compatible with I had to buy a Laptop and I chose a Mac only for the Text replacement feature and the ability to sync them. However, the text replacement on my Mac doesn’t work properly. Some do, others don’t and it’s driving me crazy. Also having issue with changing the short cuts. On my iPad I can have for example (aa) and I can edit it all the time with no issue but on my Mac I have a million (aa) and it doesn’t work at all. I don’t understand how this feature can be so bad on Mac. I just bought a $1000 computer for this specific feature and it doesn’t work. Come on, Apple. You can do better. If you can make it work fine on IPad you can do the same on Mac. What do I do know? And it’s not like I can even make a whole new list of shortcuts and make them work because they are still all synced. Also, if I have a short cut aº on iPad I can’t use it on the Mac because the keyboard of my iPad (the slim magnetic one) has a different arrangements than on my Mac. At least let me edit this! I don’t know I’m already over this and I’m so frustrated and I don’t want to deal with looking for updates and complicated stuff because I’m not a Techie. I just need my stuff to work so I can work. Can anyone help? O can someone from Apple help me? Thank you.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Oct 20, 2024 4:40 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,084 points

Oct 20, 2024 6:03 AM in response to Veritorossi

Veritorossi wrote:

I have a short cut aº on iPad I can’t use it on the Mac because the keyboard of my iPad (the slim magnetic one) has a different arrangements than on my Mac.

Could you explain this in more detail? What language are your two keyboards? What is that shortcut supposed to produce?

To tell Apple something, you need to use

http://www.apple.com/feedback

Here you are talking to other users like yourself who will try to help solve your probem.

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,084 points

Oct 20, 2024 7:10 AM in response to Veritorossi

Veritorossi wrote:

All the 1 º , 2 º , 3 º, etc don’t work on my Mac because I can’t even find that character.

º is at option zero on a US keyboard with the US input source active. But it may be better to stay away from characters not used in English for text replacement shortcuts.

To find what any key does, see

Use the Keyboard Viewer on Mac - Apple Support

Sorry I can help with the rest

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,084 points

Oct 20, 2024 9:35 AM in response to Veritorossi

PS Regarding the problems you have synching text replacements, check Apple’s guide to this and report the failures you are seeing via the link provided earlier

Back up and share text replacements on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Veritorossi Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 20, 2024 6:23 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi! Thank you for replying. My issue is that the shortcuts on my Mac don’t work the same way that on my iPad. Some work but others don’t. Like for example (aa) is one I use all the time and I change the sentence all the time because info in the sentence changes every week. I can’t specify what it says because I signed an NDA and is not relevant to my issue. But on my IPad I have only one short cuts (aa/ bb/ cc) but if you go to my Mac you have a million different ones that I’ve used the few months. If I delete them on my Mac the short stops working all together. If you type (aa) even after leaving the one I want it doesn’t work at all on my Mac. Then I also have the (a º) short cut on my iPad. All the 1 º , 2 º , 3 º, etc don’t work on my Mac because I can’t even find that character. My keyboard is in Spanish on iPad and normal English one on my Mac. But my main issue is that some shortcuts specially the ones I edit all the time don’t work on my Mac. I don’t know how to explain it better. Basically the text replacement is great on IPad and it’s garbage on Mac. How can this be possible? Why don’t they make it the same for both? Isn’t iPad supposed to be more basic than a laptop and yet the software for iPad is better than the one for Mac. I know these may seem silly but my job is all about these text replacements since I work in customer care and have to use these everyday.

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