Top Tips and Tools for Cutting, Copying, and Pasting

Top Tips and Tools for Cutting, Copying, and Pasting

There’s more to the Windows clipboard than meets the eye.

Cutting, copying, and pasting seems like such a simple process, having been a core feature of Windows and Windows applications for years. But there are some tricks, techniques, and tools you can use to ease and enhance the process.

In the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, you can use the new and improved clipboard to store and paste multiple items in one shot. You can also tell the clipboard to sync your cut or copied items across all your Windows 10 devices.

If that’s not enough, you can turn to third-party clipboard utilities such as ClipX, Ditto, and ClipClip. And in Microsoft Office, you can control and customize the items you paste so they take on the desired formatting and other attributes.

First, let’s look at the new clipboard in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. Open Settings and then System and click on Clipboard. To begin storing multiple items one after the other, turn on the switch for Clipboard history.

Now, copy several items one after the other. You can copy text, images, hyperlinks, and anything else you’d normally copy. Move to a blank spot in a document. Press Win+V. The clipboard history window pops up showing all the items you copied sorted by the most recent ones at the top.

Scroll down the window and tap on the item you want to paste. Continue pasting the items as needed.

Next, you can control the items in the clipboard. Click on the X next to an item you no longer need and want to delete. Click on the pin next to an item you want to keep even if you clear all the items. Click on the Clear all link to remove all the items in the clipboard. Only the items you pinned will remain. Your clipboard history also is cleared when you shut down or reboot your computer, so make sure you pin any items you want to keep indefinitely. You can always remove a pinned item by clicking on its pin and then clicking on the X.

You can sync your clipboard history so it’s available on other computers running the Windows 10 October 2018 update. Return to Settings, System, and click on Clipboard. Turn on the switch for Sync across devices. Choose whether you want to automatically sync text that you copy or never automatically sync text that you copy. The first option is easier to work with as all items get synced.

Now, jump to another Windows 10 computer with the October update. Open Settings, System, and then Clipboard. Turn on the switches for Clipboard history and Sync across devices. Open a document or text file. Press Win+V, and the Clipboard history pops up with the items you copied on the other computer.

If you like the idea of storing all your clipboard items in an ongoing list but want more power and flexibility, you can try any one of a number of free third-party clipboard utilities.

One of my favorites is ClipX. The program is simple and basic. Just copy your items – text, images, hyperlinks, etc. Press a hotkey such as Alt+V to display the menu of copied items. Then, click on the item you want to paste.

You can specify the number of items to store in the clipboard, save your history across sessions, and define different hotkeys for pasting. The one downside is that ClipX hasn’t been updated in a long time, so it doesn’t have the latest bells and whistles. But at its core, it still works well.

Another good choice is Ditto. The process is the same. Copy or cut each item one after another. Press the hotkey to display the Ditto clipboard menu and select the item you want to paste. Ditto offers a healthy array of options. You can define the types of items to store in the clipboard, customize hotkeys for a variety of actions, and send copied items to other computers.

A third clipboard utility I recommend is ClipClip. Again, the process is familiar. Copy your items. Press the hotkey you defined to display the menu. Then, select the item you want to paste. You can opt to paste text with its formatting intact or as plain text. You also copy and paste hyperlinks, images, and other types of content.

By default, ClipClip keeps track of the last 100 items you cut or copied and can even retain entries after you reboot or shut down your computer. You can pin individual clips to save them, save all the latest clips, or clear all the latest clips.

Finally, if you use Microsoft Office, you can control how cut or copied items are pasted. You can select the formatting for pasted items either as a default value beforehand or a change afterward.

To do this in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, click on the File menu and select Options. At the Options menu, select Advanced and scroll down to the section for Cut, Copy, and Paste. Word offers the most options, giving you the ability to control your pastes within the same document, across different documents, between different documents with conflicting styles, and from other programs. Review and play with the different settings here to see which ones work best for you as the default values.

After you paste an item in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, you can adjust the formatting through the Paste Options button. Click on the button immediately after a paste.

In Word, you can typically opt to retain the source formatting, merge the formatting with surrounding text, or keep the pasted content as text only.

In Excel, you can control the formatting and also choose to paste the item as a formula, a value, or a link.

And in PowerPoint, you can select such options as using the destination theme, keeping the source formatting, or keeping text only.

To learn more about copying and pasting in Word specifically, check out my article on “How to Resolve Copy and Paste Problems in Microsoft Word.”

Ask @WinObs: Are There Alternative Digital Assistants for Windows 10?

Q. I’m not keen on Cortana or Google Assistant. Are there alternative Digital Assistants for Windows 10?

Today, the Amazon Alexa for Windows 10 PCs app was released to the Microsoft Store.

We first learned about Alexa for PCs back in January at CES 2018. At that time, it was only going to be made available on certain Windows 10 devices by OEMs such as HP, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer.

A few months later, it started appearing on those devices in retail channels but remained unavailable for other Windows 10 devices. However, some enterprising individuals managed to separate the app from those shipping devices, and it became available as a popular yet unofficial third-party download.

As of today, the Alexa app for Windows 10 PCs is now officially available from the Microsoft Store. Users in the U.S., U.K. and Germany have access to the app beginning today. According to Amazon, this list will expand to additional locations in 2019.

Alexa App Microsoft Store Listing

Downloading and installing the app is very straightforward. When you start the Alexa app for the first time, you will be prompted to set up Amazon Alexa. This includes giving permission for the app to access your microphone, logging into your Amazon account, agreeing to the Terms and Conditions, and then selecting to launch the Alexa App each time your device starts up and enabling the app related sounds.

Alexa App for Windows 10 Setup Screen

Now the Alexa app is ready to use. Be warned: there are some limitations according to the FAQ:

• Hands-free options using the Wake word are only available on compatible Windows 10 devices with far-field microphones. (Microsoft has a continuously-updated list of them here.) Otherwise, Alexa is activated using the Alexa button in the app.
• Spotify and Pandora are not accessible currently using the app.

From the main page of the app, as shown above, you have tabs for Home and Now Playing that give you direct access to issue voice commands to Alexa.

Under Home you can ask Alexa to control your compatible smart home devices, give you the weather, look up information on a wide variety of subjects, create calendar events, timers, alarms, and any other compatible command or enabled skill except for the noted items which are not yet accessible.

The Now Playing tab is your musical interface where you can ask Alexa to play tunes from Amazon Prime Music or your own collection on Amazon Music. It recognizes playlists you have set up in the service and of course, if you are an Amazon Music Unlimited subscriber, you have access to that entire music library.

The other tabs give you information about the app, an option to fully exit the app, sign out, and a limited settings menu.

In addition to the wake word on compatible devices, you can also open Alexa using the keyboard shortcut of CTRL-SHIFT+A. Note: The app must be open on your device for the keyboard shortcut to function.

After testing out the app, I find it to have a distinctly unfinished feel to it. While it does support the latest craze of Light and Dark themes, it uses your Windows 10 system preference setting, it does not have its own switch to toggle this on and off. In addition, the difference in appearance between light and dark for things like displaying the weather is way out of whack.

Alexa App in Light Mode

Alexa App in Dark Mode

This and the out of proportion and small sized text in the app’s settings as shown below, contribute to that unfinished feel.

Alexa App Settings

Most of your set-up for skills, smart home devices, and other activities still happen within either the Alexa mobile app or through the Alexa website.

Speaking of the mobile apps, I think Amazon missed a real chance to turn these apps into a progressive web application (PWA) and have a similar interface across all the platforms you can use to access the service. Maybe that will happen as they expand the Alexa app for Windows 10 in the future.

To Conclude

Yes, there is an alternative digital assistant for Cortana on Windows 10 and it is called Alexa. However, you might want to wait as Amazon adds additional features and clean up the app’s UI.