PlainTextClipboard is a very simple program that takes any rich (formatted) text it finds on the clipboard and replaces it with plain (unformatted) text.
This is useful for those situations where you want to paste text and have it formatted like the text where you are pasting instead of keeping the original formatting.
Some applications provide an alternative paste command that lets you treat any pasted text as unformatted. For example, the Thunderbird mail client provides a Paste Without Formatting menu command. Microsoft Word provides a Paste Special menu command that brings up a list of options, one of which is to treat the pasted text as Unformatted Text. However, even when using applications that do provide such commands, it is almost always quicker to just invoke PlainTextClipboard to convert the text and then use the normal paste command, especially if you use the CTRL+ALT+T keyboard shortcut that is set up when PlainTextClipboard is installed.
If you run PlainTextClipboard when there is no formatted text on the clipboard, it will simply do nothing.
When you run PlainTextClipboard, there is no user interface. It simply converts any formatted text on the clipboard to unformatted text each time it is run. You may see a black command window flash up and disappear when you run PlainTextClipboard - this is normal behaviour. Other than that, there is nothing to indicate that PlainTextClipboard has done its task. This is intentional, since it is designed to be a tool to speed up a common operation. If it were to show a message box to say what it had done, this would require an extra key press or mouse click to dismiss the dialog, which would slow down the operation.
| Keyboard shortcut |
The easiest way to run PlainTextClipboard is to hold down the CTRL and ALT keys, and press T. This keyboard shortcut is automatically set up when PlainTextClipboard is installed. In some cases however, you may find that this does not work if the currently active program has assigned that keyboard shortcut to one of its own functions. If you have a keyboard that has extra user-definable keys, then setting up one of these to run PlainTextClipboard would be the best way to run it. |
| Desktop icon |
An alternative way to run PlainTextClipboard is to simply click on the PlainTextClipboard icon which is automatically placed on your desktop when it is installed. |
| Start menu | Finally, PlainTextClipboard can always be run by selecting the Windows Start menu, then All Programs, and then locating the menu command to run PlainTextClipboard (by default this is in the Plain Text Clipboard folder). |