CopyPaste Pro

One of the limitations of OS X is that the copy and paste function only has one slot, on one clipboard.  If you want to paste something that has been copied earlier (and in the meantime you have copied something else), the first copied item is lost.  If you do a lot of copying and pasting, something better is needed.  I read about a couple of copy/paste programs that fill the bill.

The first is one that was given "four mice" by Macworld Magazine, called PTHPasteboard Pro 4.5.2.  This is a systems utility that allows multiple copy paste and has a lot functionality built in via Apple Scripts that makes it very useful to someone writing a lot of software code.  The scripts (which run as filters) can do a lot to put in (or take out) html tags, etc.  You can build custom filters and save them for future use. It costs $30 and can be found here.

For the same money, however, I chose another piece of software called CopyPaste Pro that has some pretty cool features.  It not only allows multiple copies and pastes but you can put your copied materials into folders called archives within the application.  It even has a built in word processor called Bean to edit your saved clips.  There are lots of ways to see what you have copied through hot spots on the desktop as well as something like the Dock that opens on the right.

Other things I like are a nice set of screencast tutorials on the website as well as good Help material.  CopyPaste Pro was rated 4.6 out of 5.0 on MacUpDate.  The company even has an endorsement from noted Mac User, James Galway : - ) This is an application rather than a systems utility but you can set it up so that it launches at startup.

One interesting feature is that if you copy a segment from a webpage that contains multiple URLs or e-mail addresses, Copypaste Pro has a script that allows you to strip these out and save them separately from the rest of the stuff on the page.

I have been using this now for a few days and I like this application.  Sure, there are other ways to do this, including multiple copies to TextEdit or using the Services menu to park clips in different applications, but this is very intuitive and user-friendly.