Are you tired of repeating the same task on your PC, over and over again? Launching a particular sequence of applications, say, or perhaps carrying out the same string of actions online? Then you may benefit from WinParrot, a clever free tool that can record your keypresses and mouse clicks for replay at some later date.
The program makes it unusually easy to get started. It’s a tiny 654KB download; there’s no installation required, just unzip and run; and recording your macro is as simple as, well, clicking Record (and pressing the End key when you’re done).
This is all very straightforward, and as a result it only takes a moment to generate your first sample macro. You might try entering a few figures into Excel, for instance; create and send a test email to someone, say, or perhaps open a website and carry out some useful action (save the file to disc, say).
Whatever you’re doing, WinParrot then presents your macro in table. Just click each step in turn and you’ll see a screen grab reminding you what was happening (where you clicked, for instance). And you can drag and drop steps to reorder them in the sequence, useful if you’ve made a mistake.
That’s just the start, though. Amazingly, considering its small size, WinParrot also includes a mini-programming language that you can (optionally) use to extend your macros. There’s looping, conditional testing, variable and math functions, you can prompt for user input, and the list goes on (the online documentation has more).
Useful debugging tools help you to test everything, and when the macro is complete it can be launched from the interface, the command line, or even scheduled to run automatically, whenever you like.
Put it all together and WinParrot really is an excellent tool, which scores in every area: it’s compact, portable, has no adware hassles, doesn’t require admin rights, is easy enough for beginners to use, yet also has a wealth of powerful options which experts will love. We’ve no idea why it’s also free, but go grab a copy for yourself, anyway, before the creators change their minds.
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