AutoHotkey Hotkeys and HotStrings: The quickest way to automate!

One of the first practical things that people can learn to create in AutoHotkey is a simple AutoHotkey hotkey and hotstrings. Hotkeys and hotstrings are a powerful and convenient way to automate tasks on a Windows computer, and they are relatively easy to create and use.

For example, you could create a hotkey to launch a specific program or open a specific folder with just a few keystrokes. You could also create a hotstring to automatically expand a short abbreviation into a longer phrase or sentence, saving time and effort when typing repetitive or commonly-used phrases.

To create an AutoHotkey hotkeys and hotstrings, you will need to use the following syntax:

AutoHotkey Hotkeys:

hotkey:: action

For example, to create a hotkey using the Windows Key and the letter C to launch the Google Chrome browser, you could use the following code:

#c::Run “C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” ;Windows key + C to run Chrome

AutoHotkey Hotstrings:

::abbreviation::expanded text

To create a hotstring to automatically expand the abbreviation “btw” into the phrase “by the way,” you could use the following code:
::btw::by the way ;typing btw will get expanded to “by the way”

Once you have created your hotkey or hotstring, you can save it in a script file and run it using the AutoHotkey executable.

Overall, creating an AutoHotkey hotkey and hotstring is a practical and useful skill to learn when starting with AutoHotkey. It can save a significant amount of time and effort and make it easier to perform common tasks on your Windows computer.

We cover both HotStrings and Hotkeys in our Intro to AutoHotkey course which have a 200% money-back guarantee! That’s right. If you don’t like it, we pay you!