Hover over the “Services” section and you’ll see a bunch of quick actions.

There are all kinds of useful options here.

you’re able to open a URL usingIINA, a great video player for Mac.

The services menu can also be found in the menu bar. Dictact is once again highlighted.

You get the idea: you could automate whatever it is that is selected.

From here you’ve got the option to check or uncheck items.

you’ve got the option to also set custom keyboard shortcuts for these services.

System Settings opened to the Services sub-section of the keyboard shortcuts window. Various services are visible—the user can check the ones they want to enable, and also set keyboard shortcuts.

CalcService does math

CalcService is afree downloadthat lets you do math in any text field.

It’s magic, and even better once you create a keyboard shortcut for the feature.

WordService

WordService comes as afree downloadfrom Devon Technologies, the same company that made CalcService.

The software, Dictator, shows text—the current word being read is highlighted. A toolbar allows the user to pause the reading or to skip ahead and behind.

This is useful for all kinds of things, from composing social media posts to long-form writing.

But there’s so much more here to dig into.

There are actions for converting text that’s in all caps to lowercase, and vice versa.

A simple pop-up window with statistics about the currently highlighted text. There are 252 characters and 72 spaces for a total of 324. There are 54 words and 20 lines.

There are actions for inserting the current time, or the current date.

And there are actions for adding or removing smart quotes from a block of text.

If you publish things online regularly, this is a good collection of tools to have around.

A text document with the name “Justin Pot” highlighted.

This can save you a lot of time while writing, assuming that you do that writing in markdown.

It’s a great tool to have around.

Shortcuts can work this way too

Didn’t quite find the app you want?

The same text document as before, but a link formatted in markdown was added. Like this: <a href="https://justinpot.com/">Justin Pot</a>|

You could try building one yourself.

Any shortcut you build in Apple Shortcuts can function as a service.

Just make sureUse as Quick ActionandServices Menuare highlighted in theShortcut detailspane.

The right-panel of the Apple Shortcuts application, with various options for this specific shortcut. The &ldquo;Use as Quick Action&rdquo; option is checked, as is &ldquo;Services Menu&rdquo;.