You know the drill. Five nearly identical Snippets for the same email, and they differ by a sentence or two.
Conditional Sections fix that. You build the versions once inside a single Snippet, then pick the one you need at the moment you expand.
Take an interview confirmation email. Same greeting, same interviewer names, same sign-off every time. What changes is the logistics:
- Local, in office: office address, check-in instructions, and a photo ID reminder
- Local, virtual: video link, tech check reminder, and coordinator contact
- Requires travel: office address, flight and hotel details, and reimbursement instructions
Instead of three Snippets, that’s one Snippet with a three-branch Conditional Section in the middle. Everything around it stays put.
Isn’t that what Optional Sections do?
Optional Sections use checkboxes, so you can include any number of blocks, or none at all. Good for a disclaimer you sometimes tack on. Conditional Sections use a dropdown, and you pick exactly one. Good when the content changes based on a single decision: plan type, region, visit type, that kind of thing.
Short version: Optional Sections turn a block on or off. Conditional Sections choose between versions of a block. And you can use both in the same Snippet.
A few things worth knowing once you start building
Branches hold more than plain text. Formatting, links, fill-ins, images, tables, even other Snippets. You can also nest a Conditional Section inside a branch, so one choice leads to a follow-up choice. A support reply might go product area, issue type, then the reason with each dropdown appearing only after you answer the one above it.
Availability
Conditional Sections work in TextExpander for Mac, Windows, and Chrome, plus the web app at app.textexpander.com.
We’re slow rolling this out to all customers over the next few weeks. If you’re on 8.4.6 and don’t see it yet, nothing is broken. It’s on the way.
Check out our Learning Center article for more details. We’ve also published a public Group, Conditional Sections examples, that you can add to your library.
