Web forms

An auto typer for web forms

Forms are where long text goes to be retyped. Typist enters your prepared text into the form field you have focused, at a speed you set, and leaves the submit button alone.

The fields worth handing over

Most forms are mostly short. Name, email, a dropdown, a date — nobody needs help with those. Then there is one box that takes real text: the message field on a contact form, the description on a listing, the long answer on an application, the notes field an internal tool asks for twenty times a day.

That box is the one worth handing over, and it is usually the one where the text already exists somewhere else — in a document you drafted, in an email you are adapting. Paste it into the Typist panel, click the field, press Start, and it goes in at whatever pace you chose while you do something else.

What works, stated plainly

Typist types by sending keystrokes to the focused field, so it works in the places that take real keyboard input and nowhere else. Specifically:

• Ordinary text inputs. The single-line boxes that make up most of a form.
• Text areas. The multi-line boxes — the message field, the description, the long answer. This is the common case.
• Rich-text editors that accept keyboard input. The editable areas web apps build their formatting toolbars around.
• Google Docs documents. Supported directly by the extension — see auto type in Google Docs.

If you press Start while something else is focused — a button, a dropdown, an empty patch of page — the run does not begin. The panel asks you to click into a text field rather than guessing where you meant. That refusal is deliberate: a typer that guesses at a target on a form is worse than one that stops.

It fills one field. It does not submit.

Worth saying without hedging, because it is the question people arrive with: Typist types into the single field you focused, and that is the entire scope of a run. It does not tab to the next field, tick boxes, choose from dropdowns, navigate between pages, or press submit. When the text is in, the run ends and the form is sitting there exactly as you left it, waiting for you.

So you keep the last look at the form before it goes anywhere. And if another field needs text too, you click it and run again.

If what you are after is a tool that completes and submits a whole form without you, that is a different category of software and we would rather point you at it than sell you the wrong thing: browser automation vs auto typer lays out where the line falls.

Choosing a speed for a form

Speed is adjustable from 20 to 400 words per minute, with presets at 40, 60, 100, 150, 250 and 400 and a default of 60. There are two pacing modes: a varied pace that takes short pauses at punctuation, and a fast steady mode roughly eight times quicker with no pauses.

For a plain text area, fast is usually fine. Slower is worth reaching for when the form is doing something as you type — validating on each keystroke, autosaving a draft, reformatting inside a rich-text editor. Those forms can fall behind a very fast run, and the symptom is dropped or scrambled characters. If that happens, lower the speed and try the same text again. Typing speed control has more detail.

Any run can be paused and picked up from the same character, or stopped outright. A progress indicator shows how far through the text you are.

Add Typist to Chrome

Free plan: 300 words a day, reset at 00:00 UTC. A Google sign-in is required before typing.

If it is the same form every day

Text you enter repeatedly belongs in a snippet: a titled block saved to your account and synced to your other signed-in devices. Free accounts keep three, Pro keeps as many as you like, and editing one you already own never counts against the limit. That turns a daily form into load, click, Start — more on repetitive browser data entry.

Does my text get sent anywhere?

The text in the panel stays on your device and is sent only to the page you are typing into. The single exception is a snippet you deliberately save, which is stored so it can sync between your devices. See the privacy page.

Why did the run refuse to start?

Almost always because the focused element is not an editable field. Click directly into the text box on the form and press Start again.

Does a stopped run still use my daily words?

Yes. Words count against the day the moment you press Start, so a run you stop part-way still spends what it reserved. See pricing.

Can I type into several form fields in one run?

No. One run, one focused field. Run it again for the next one.

The auto typer for Chrome page covers everything in one place.