The only thing is, I think I noticed my computer slow own a little bit after adding these.
Just continue typing and it will enter the correction, so x squared is x^^2 (or whatever your preferred code to tell it to do the correction. Show Emoji & Symbols (Character Viewer) from the menu bar pref to enable the icon is in System Prefs > Keyboard. You can use the keyboard shortcut: In Word, select the text. How do you type squared on a Mac Type the squared symbol in Word on Mac. In fact, this will work anywhere in Windows or online even in Word. To apply superscript, press Ctrl + Shift + equal sign (). To apply superscript or subscript using a keyboard shortcut: Select the text character, number or symbol to which you want to apply superscript or subscript. Here's how I set it up in my Mavericks System Preferences > Keyboard Incidentally, if you needed ‘cubed’ instead of ‘squared’ then type 0179 and you’ll get a superscript 3. Applying or removing superscript or subscript using a keyboard shortcut. I also found it as "Text Replacement" under Edit > Substitutions in TextEdit. You'll either see it as an item you can activate in the Edit menu or you won't. This trick will also only work in applications which offer Automatic Text Replacement which might well overlap to a large extent with applications which offer superscript already, making it of limited usage.
MacOS Sierra: Replace text and punctuation in documents
Unfortunately this document is only the Sierra version and offers some features not in Mavericks, but a limited Mavericks version is available: