(Note: Numbers 1 through 3 require WordService — read the article to understand)

There’s a whole hidden side of text modification that is stashed away, yet right at your fingertips. If you go to the Application menu (if you’re in Safari, click the menu ‘Safari’) -> Services, a whole list pops down. You’ve probably disregarded this in the past (if you’ve ever seen it) because most of the options are grayed out, or unclickable. All you need to do is highlight some text. Go back to the menu and there are so many to choose from! Here are my favorites:

1) Have you ever typed something and then realized you were in caps lock? You probably deleted it and typed it again all in lowercase. You could be more efficient. If you go to Services -> Convert -> Lowercase, it solves the problem without you having to type it all again! You could even do Convert -> Initial Caps of Sentences to have every letter lowercase except the first letter of the first word in a sentence. Nifty!

2) Are you space bar trigger happy? Ever typed more than 1 space in between words? Services -> Format -> Remove Multiple Spacestakes care of that.

3) This one’s really helpful. Have you ever needed a long list to be alphabetized? Maybe not even just words, but how about lines of text? At Services -> Format -> Sort Lines Ascending, your entire selection becomes alphabetized. No shareware programs necessary!

4) Don’t feel like reading this whole article, but you still want to get an idea of what it’s about? Perfect! Select all of it and go toServices -> Summarize. Works well with reviews and book reports!

And this doesn’t only work with Safari – it works with every application on your Mac! There are several you can download from the internet. They’re called Services and you put them in your home folder -> Library -> Services, if they don’t get installed there already.