Preserve Text Formatting From Clipboard?

[Cory]

Example: I have a macro where the user copies some HTML formatted text to a clipboard that is later pasted into an email. But there are other operations in between that require the use of the clipboard. As it is now if I write the clipboard to a string var only the characters are copied and not the formatting so when I read back fro the variable into the clipboard all I get it plain text. How can I preserve the formatted text?

[randallc]

Hi, cory,

I'll be interested to hear if there's an answer to this; workaround is to paste it to an open word doc, I suppose, and retrieve again later, without using variables

best, randall

[kevin]

What you need is a Clipboard Manager. Macro Express does not perform these functions natively but it will automate the interaction with one. Here are a couple:

 

http://www.x2net.com/smartboard/

http://www.clipmate.com/

 

I know the authors of both smartboard and clipmate.

 

A quick Google turned up 1.8 million pages containing 'Clipboard Manager'.

[lemming]

There's really no need for any 3rd party programs, or even MS Word. Win XP has all the tools by default.

 

You can save formatted text using Wordpad (listed under Accessories).

 

In fact, I find Wordpad preferable to Word for this purpose because pasting web content into Word seems to cause crashes on PCs (3 different ones so far, and same problem with Word 2000 and Word XP).

 

Also note that copying formatted web content only seems to work using IE. If you copy any text from Firefox pages, it all becomes plain text.

 

Another program you can use is the Windows XP Clipboard Viewer. For some reason MS made it hard to find and doesn't document it much. But it is installed by default - you can find it in C:\WINDOWS\system32\clipbrd.exe

 

or do a search for clipbrd.exe

 

To quote its help file:

Using ClipBook Viewer, you can cut or copy information from another program and store it in a page that you can name, save, use again, and share with others.

 

-Lemming

[Cory]

Well I really didn't want to have to open another application to do this. I'm interested in the clipboard programs though, I'll check into them later. I assume they're like the Office clipboard util. I hate that thing. It isn't intuitive and it only works in Office applications which is really dumb.

 

Well at least I know I'm not missing anythign obvious.

[BoxSoft]

I assume they're like the Office clipboard util. I hate that thing. It isn't intuitive and it only works in Office applications which is really dumb.

I've been using ClipMate for a very, very long time now, and it's probably the most useful utility I own (even more so than Macro Express ). Fortunately, it's nothing like that aggravating tool in Office. (Thank God!)

 

[Cory]

Hmmmm.... I'll have to check that out. Thanks!

[joe]

My cohort Paul uses Clipmate. He swears by it I think. That being said, I personally don't think it's more useful than Macro Express But I have been wrong before.

[cnewtonne]

I had same issue. I have ton of RTF templates I use daily and I wanted to automate process of inserting them. As much as I love MacroExpress, but for some reason the developers are keeping deaf ears on this request and they are feeling too comfortable not doing any thing about it. Why on earth do they tell their customers to go and find another tool to do this, is incomprehensible for me. Any way...

 

Well someone beat them to it and did it. It is called Perfect Keyboard and they allow you to create 'clipboard macro' that does just this. It is beautiful and works great. The apt has some issue which I was told are being resolved in a new version coming up.

 

- you can also use ClipCache and save it as a favorite. Works good too.

- FlashPaste and FastPaste also do this just fine.

 

If this tool works as good, I will unfortunately let go of ME and I do not feel good about it.

 

My word of advice for ME developers, do not take your customers for granted and feel too comfortable. If they ask for a feature and it can be done within the scope of the app, just do it. Do not resort to easy answers like 'go get another app' or 'it is currently not supported' and leave at that.

[paul]

My cohort Paul uses Clipmate. He swears by it I think. That being said,  I personally don't think it's more useful than Macro Express    But I have been wrong before.

I certainly do swear by it (though, on occasion, I have also been known to swear at it!).

 

It's a marvellous product, and in recent times has become even more integrated into my desktop. I couldn't live without it (slight exaggeration ). Using this product, I disable all office clipboards since they are not very helpful. I don't compare it with Macro Express, since the 2 products serve entirely different needs.

 

So, even though Joe is wrong far more often than he cares to admit , this is one of those rare occasions when he's not wrong !

[Cory]

I had forgotten about this and am just now trying out ClipMate. Very cool. Thanks guys!

[patgenn123]

Hello,

 

I downloaded ClipMate and I love the functionality. I have a question about it though. I think this would work really great with Macro Express, but how can the actual Clipmate program repaste the information back into the clipboard?

 

For example, if I were to highlight two files on the desktop and either Ctrl+C or right click to press "copy", I see it was captured by ClipMate, but it looks like it needs to be "clicked" in Clipmate to paste it in the clipboard.

 

How can it be auto pasted back to the clipboard without it going to Clipmate?

 

I am sorry if i had to paste this here and not Clipmate, but I tried to send an e-mail to the admin and nothing/no response.

 

This would make Macro be very big for me and would open up a greater understanding of computers etc. One small baby step....

 

Pat

[paul]

Clipmate has several different modes of operation. The essential fact to grasp is that the currently focused entry is ClipMate represents the current contents of the clipboard. You can move up and down through Clipmate by pressing either of the two hotkeys reserved for this purpose (which you can configure); when you do this, you are changing the contents of the clipboard. You can also disable Clipmate (i.e. prevent it from taking any more clips while it's disabled) and reenable it by pressing the hotkey you have defined that toggles Auto-Capture (which you can also achieve in a macro by typing the key combination that represents your hotkey).

[patgenn123]

Paul,

 

So what you are saying is that if I multi-select say.... three files on my desktop(hit copy or Ctrl +C), then click on clipboard to see all three files in the clipboard and they will be there?

 

You're saying they actually are there if I did a repeat with folder in Macro Express to grab them from the clipboard as a single variable?

 

As soon as I get home from Memorial Day weekend, I will try it. It just didn't seem that that was the case. I had to go in Clipmate and click the "highlighted one" to get it to paste it back into the clipboard. If that's the case, what the heck is it good for?

 

My desire is for clipmate to auto paste it BACK INTO the clipboard after I multilselect files and hit copy OR Ctrl +C. I guess the regular clipboard doesn't show all that were copied or a Macro doesn't read all that is copied right?

 

Pat

[paul]

I opened Explorer, selected 3 text files and did a Ctrl-C.

 

In Clipmate the 3 filenames appeared in a single clip.

 

I then navigated to my Temp folder, and did a paste: all 3 files appeared as expected.

[patgenn123]

Paul,

 

Thanks for the information. However, can clipmate auto paste it back into the clipboard without having to go to the "temp" folder to click it?

 

I know exactly what you mean because you can see the list in clipmate and click on it, but what is a macro for but to automate these things. And shouldn't Clipmate be able to do a re-paste back onto the clipboard?

 

Pat

[paul]

I don't follow what you're asking! Try looking at it this way:

• ClipMate is a facility to store lists of any kind
  
• The currently focused list item is, by definition, the current contents of the clipboard
  
• Whenever a new item arrives in the clipboard, it also becomes a new list item in ClipMate
  

So your question doesn't make any sense to me. If you want to control navigation of ClipMate's list items via a macro, you can (refer to ClipMate's hotkeys).