Ian's Software Site - ClipText Program - Converts Clipboard contents to unformatted text

Ian's Software Site - Minimalist software programs that are tiny yet very powerful

ClipText Program

ClipText allows you to paste unformatted text

Displays the Windows "clipboard" contents as plain text, then copies that text back to the clipboard. This is great when you want to copy something and paste elsewhere without the formatting (eg. fonts, colours, line spacing, etc). Also allows the clipboard to be emptied (eg. for privacy). Try it, it's free!

ClipText Program Details

The Problem With Copy & Paste:
Copy & Paste is a valuable feature of Windows. However, sometimes it can be a nuisance that Windows copies all the formatting along with the information. For example, copying totals from a nicely formatted spreadsheet, then pasting just the totals into a report. This can be especially difficult if the program into which that information will be pasted doesn't have a "Paste Unformatted Text" option.

One Low-Tech Solution:
In the past, I used to get around this as follows:

Copy formatted text from Program 1;
Fire up "Notepad" and paste the text (losing the formatting in the process);
Highlight everything and Copy from Notepad (minus the formatting);
Switch to Program 2 (using ALT-TAB) and paste the un-formatted text;

ClipText To The Rescue!
I therefore wrote this really basic program: ClipText. It simply takes the information from the Clipboard as plain text and copies it back to the Clipboard, thus saving me the several steps I previously performed with Notepad.

Using ClipText:
This is a pretty basic program, which hardly needs any explanation. First of all, it's small enough that it uses almost no system resources. It can simply be fired up when the situation arises and left running whilst copying and pasting.

Typical Usage:

Copy formatted text from Program 1;
Fire up "ClipText". The clipboard contents will be immediately pasted into ClipText and re-copied as un-formatted text. Leave ClipText running;
Switch to Program 2 (using ALT-TAB) and paste the un-formatted text;
Switch back to Program 1 (using ALT-TAB) and copy more formatted text;
Switch to ClipText momentarily to convert to un-formatted text;
Switch to Program 2 (using ALT-TAB) and paste the un-formatted text;

Repeat steps 4 through 6 as many times as needed before shutting down ClipText.

ClipText ver 1.40, 27-Sep-2006
Requires: Windows 95 / 98 / NT / ME / 2K / XP / Vista

File name: ClipText1.exe
File size: 5,632 bytes (5.5Kb)

DOWNLOAD NOW
There are several ways of downloading or executing the program, which will vary depending on the browser that you are using and the browser's security settings:

Click on the above link and either "Open" or "Run" the program directly;
Click on the above link and save the program to your computer;
Right-Click on the above link and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" to save the program to your computer.

The program can be saved directly to your Desktop, thus skipping the extra step of creating a "shortcut" to run the program.

Split Second Download:
Many people are surprised when the download completes almost instantly, even on a relatively slow Internet connection.

Don't panic, it's not a malfunction - it's simply because the ClipText program is so incredibly tiny!

At less than 1/180th of a megabyte, compared to several megabytes for most other programs, ClipText is one of the smallest programs available on the Internet today. It should take less time to download the program than it took to download this web-page!

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