Better copy-and-paste: the simple things that speed up everything

They’re called clipboard managers and suddenly I have the image of a time and motion person scribbling down notes about how slow I am. A Clipboard Manager, let’s give it initial caps and explain a bit more, is a type of software that makes your copying-and-pasting better.

It’s hard to see what you could really improve there. You copy something, you paste it. Not a lot of room for technological innovation.

Except there is.

With any such app, you can copy something, then copy something else, something else. An hour later, something else. And then tomorrow paste each of those into an email. Paste them all in one big go. Paste the third thing first, the second thing second, the fourth third, anything you like.

I’ve been aware of these for a long time and paid them no attention at all. But I’ve recently reviewed two apps that happen to include this feature amongst their many others. It was the many others that made them worth reviewing but it’s this clipboard management that was most important in making me keep the software on my Mac. Here’s why. If I got to paste something, it pastes like normal. But if instead of pressing Command-C, I press a slightly different keystroke – with what I’ve got it’s Alt-Command-C – then this is what I see:

Screen Shot 2015-03-03 at 10.19.00

Click on that to see it full size and to also see exactly what I’ve been copying and pasting for the last few minutes. I’m hoping there’s nothing private in there.

What you see there is how the software Alfred 2 displays its clipboard manager: you get very much the same thing in LaunchBar 6, the other app I was reviewing that has this. There are others and while all of this is Mac-only, there are PC apps that do it too. Do spend some time havering over LaunchBar 6 or Alfred 2, but don’t spend any time hesitating over buying a clipboard manager. It’s that useful. I am that converted.

The Alfred 2 official website is here; LaunchBar 6’s home is there.

Review: PDFpen 2 for iPad

I’ve started writing reviews for MacNN.com and just once in a while I think some of the pieces are useful for us as writers and creatively productive kinds of people. I mentioned WordTarget very recently but this is more serious and I think more useful: it’s an app for reading PDFs on your iPad. Now, there are eleventy-billion such apps but this is much more useful because it lets you edit the PDFs.

Let me explain in this extract from the full MacNN piece:

Here’s a true story about what PDFpen 2 does. A Windows-based firm produced a year-end report that was about 80 pages and most importantly took many, many hours to create. It was all highly complex, auto-generated figures — and one huge spelling mistake. They didn’t see the mistake until the final PDF was about to be sent out to clients. Fixing it meant re-running the whole process, re-calculating everything: it meant not sending the report until tomorrow.

Luckily, one guy in the firm had PDFpen on his iPad. He opened that PDF, typed in the correct spelling, sent the PDF on its way. Total time: five minutes — and three of those had been spent on panicking.

Hands On: PDFpen 2 for iPad (iOS) – William Gallagher, MacNN (23 December 2014)

Read the full piece because PDFpen 2 for iPad is perhaps the software I most recommend out of around thirty pieces I’ve done for MacNN so far.

Recommendation: Keyboard Maestro for Mac

I mean it when I say TextExpander seems to be everywhere I turn and I also mean it when I say that Mac and iOS app is becoming a mandatory tool for me. But it’s not the only utility that watches for your keystrokes and does interesting things with them. There is also Keyboard Maestro.

Here’s what it does, nicked from the official website:

Whether you are a power user or a grandparent (or both!), your time is precious. So why waste it when Keyboard Maestro can help improve almost every aspect of using your Mac. Even the simplest things, like typing your email address, or going to Gmail or Facebook, launching Pages, or duplicating a line, all take time and add frustration. Let Keyboard Maestro help make your Mac life more pleasant and efficient.

Keyboard Maestro Official Site

No, I think we need a specific example. Also from that site:

Use function keys to launch or switch to your most used applications. For example, you probably often switch to the Finder, your Email client, your Web Browser, your Word Processor. Consider putting these and other frequently used applications on function keys.

Launch Scanner Application When Scanner is Connected. Set up a macro that automatically launches your scanner application when your scanner is connected, and quits it again when the scanner is disconnected. This works brilliantly with the ScanSnap scanners – open the lid and the scanner software launches, close it and the scanner software disappears.

I’ve used both of these. If I tap F14 on my office iMac, it takes me to OmniFocus. If that beloved application isn’t using, then while I check my pulse to see what’s wrong, Keyboard Maestro launches OmniFocus and then switches me to it.

It is very, very useful yet I don’t use it enough. I set up keys for OmniFocus, Evernote, Mail, Safari and since you can forget Keyboard Maestro when you’ve done that, I’ve forgotten it. But I did get it around the same time as I bought both TextExpander and Hazel – I expect I’ll be back talking about Hazel very soon – and my brain only took so much in.

Whereas this fella learnt it all and wants to show you. Let me have his say and then go to the Keyboard Maestro site to buy it.