Filed under: Software, Hacks, Productivity, Tips and tricks, Bad Apple
Quicksilver Trigger, Strip Clipboard Formatting
Sometimes even the best intentions of developers can't account for user preference, and after speaking with many other Mac users, this certainly seems to be the case with OS X's habitual tendency to preserve the formatting of text copied to the clipboard. For example:
I copy text from OmniWeb:
Pasted text before running the trigger:
Pasted text after running the trigger:
Quicksilver maven Dan Dickinson has figured out a sneaky way to strip out this formatting, and has turned the method into a handy Trigger. The trick works by pasting the contents of the clipboard into a terminal shell (where it loses all formatting), and then re-copying the text to the clipboard. For the trigger to work, you must have the Terminal Plugin installed. A full how-to is available on Dan's website.
I copy text from OmniWeb:
Pasted text before running the trigger:
Pasted text after running the trigger:
Quicksilver maven Dan Dickinson has figured out a sneaky way to strip out this formatting, and has turned the method into a handy Trigger. The trick works by pasting the contents of the clipboard into a terminal shell (where it loses all formatting), and then re-copying the text to the clipboard. For the trigger to work, you must have the Terminal Plugin installed. A full how-to is available on Dan's website.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Angus said 6:49PM on 4-25-2007
This can also be done using PlainClip, which is an app that runs in the menubar, available here: http://www.bluem.net/downloads/plain-clip_en/
PlainCan also be run as a Spark ( http://www.shadowlab.org/Software/software.php?sign=Sprk ) plug-in. The Spark route is especially nice if you are doing a large amount of cut and paste work.
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olivier said 7:39PM on 4-25-2007
Apple + Shift + T anyone?
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Gilles said 7:41PM on 4-25-2007
The solution is to use Option/Shift/Command V (any text will then be pasted without any formatting). This works System-Wide.
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olivier said 7:42PM on 4-25-2007
i meant V
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Karl said 9:11PM on 4-25-2007
I'm with Gilles, this has always been possible through Opt+Shift+Cmd+V which is a system wide way to correctly do this without QS intervention. QS is cool, but we don't need to invoke it's powers for even minor tasks the system provides.
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artifex said 10:52PM on 4-25-2007
I just wish pasting would work consistently, especially in Firefox. If I already have something on the clipboard, and i clip something else, sometimes the new copy is ignored, so when i paste, I still get the old clip out. This is in 10.4.9 on both g4 and intel macs. My only solution so far has been to try to use cut instead of copy when the first method fails, as sometimes that works.
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JeffDM said 11:46PM on 4-25-2007
6: Firefox is known to not use system services, and it is known to be inconsistent with respect to the rest of the Mac ecosystem.
I wish it were better in that respect, but I still use it almost exclusively because the alternatives are so limited with respect to my uses that it makes me feel almost claustrophobic.
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JeffDM said 11:51PM on 4-25-2007
5: Opt+Shift+Cmd+V? holy cow, a four key combination?! I can see why it's not that well known. Heck, I keep forgetting the key codes for doing screen grabs, those are three and four simultaneous keys too, so I just call up Grab instead.
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Breached said 2:50AM on 4-26-2007
Great for bringing this to my attention, both Dans! A great productivity solution for those of us that copy and paste out of emails and website all day long. I made my hot key Option Command V. Nice and simple. Quicksilver is one of the best apps on the Mac period.
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Jono said 4:18AM on 4-26-2007
Does anyone know how to select clips from the Quicksilver clipboard history & then paste them as plain text? (i.e. from any of the clips, not just the last one copied).
The method described above only works with the last clip copied to the clipboard (I think).
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Chris said 4:26AM on 4-26-2007
Isn't there a danger of side effects here? If the text on the clipboard has paragraph breaks, isn't the terminal going to end up trying to run commands?
e.g. Try it on the next two lines:
say Holy unexpected consequences Batman!
More text here.
I'm sticking to the built in shortcut...
(I can't test the method - away from the Mac for the day)
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ME said 8:29AM on 4-26-2007
in the example, you used Google Doc's and Spreadsheets, with OmniWeb, I love Omniweb, but it doesnt support Google Docs yet, atleast not for me!
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Joe Cabrera said 1:50PM on 4-26-2007
What I've always done is pasted the clipboard text into the CC field of a new email message then copied it back out again.
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sporobolus said 3:17AM on 4-27-2007
pbpaste | pbcopy is a very old trick, and it falls down on Unicode text; there are half a dozen other ways to do it, not least of which is this AppleScript one-liner (which may also be triggered by Quicksilver):
set the clipboard to (the clipboard as Unicode text)
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Erdem Üney said 3:02PM on 4-29-2007
Opt+Shift+Cmd+V : four keys but you need three fingers =) Opt+Cmd with the thumb and the rest you will figure out. Also in Mail, Shift+Cmd+V pastes the copied text as quoted text, in case you haven't noticed.
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