Steff.me

PTHPasteboard is one of those applications which expands the functionality of copy and paste. It does this by allowing you to copy many things without having to paste them straight away; making good use of multiple “pasteboards” which store everything you copy. Using this application means you never have to worry about losing anything you’ve copied ever again!

The application itself is just a window containing everything you’ve copied. It’s not just plain text you can copy, either. This application allows you to copy images, richly formatted text and I’ve even copied entire documents several A4 pages in length. Also, if you have some formatted text copied and you want to paste it unformatted, simply middle/command click on it and it will paste it unformatted.

It also has a search field, allowing you to find a specific copy you’re looking for. You can also right-click on any of these “copies” to access more information about them, such as the number of words and characters, the date and time or the application is was copied from. It truly is very powerful copy and paste utility.

PTHPasteboard is fairly customizable too. The settings for this application are controlled via a preference pane within System Preferences. By default the pasteboard window is always shown and the menubar image is a blue pin, however these are some of the things that are easily modified. To work as I wanted it to (in the background, doing what it should without me realising), I set it up as shown below.

This way, while I’m busy copying things and working away, PTHPasteboard is keeping track of everything I’ve been copying but in a discrete manner. When the time comes when I want to access anything, I simply click on the menubar icon and the pasteboard appears. Now I can select the item I wanted to paste and them pasteboard disappears again. What makes this even easier is HotKey support. Instead of clicking the menubar icon, simply pushing one button on the keyboard makes PTHPasteboard appear ready to be used. Simple, easy and effective.

If you’re not a fan of my minimalist approach, you can customize it in a variety of different ways. From the Pasteboards tab of PTHPasteboard you can control all of its look and feel. You can have the pasteboard window auto hide and show itself like the Dock, you can have the background row colours alternate, you can change the menubar image and much more. From the other tabs you can change various other things such as how many items you want to be shown or how many items it should try to store and so forth.

Another plus for this application - PTHPasteboard is free. That’s right, all of the functionality above is available at no cost whatsover. There is a PRO verson, though. The PRO version of PTHPasteboard gives you access to some extra features, namely Filters and Syncing.

Why upgrade to PRO?

One of the best and definitely most interesting features of PTHPasteboard is the ability to sync pasteboards between multiple machines. This feature works flawlessly. I’ve been testing it with my PowerBook and iMac and it really is quite cool to be able to copy things on one and see them on the other. It’s not just a novelty (I did actually find it fun, too…), though. It’s really easy to set up. Simple click on the plus (+) button and select the published pasteboard. Done. It really is that easy.

I spend quite a bit of time going back and forth between both of my computers, I’ll give an example that occurred the other day - when this application came in handy. I was playing a movie on my iMac (something I’d seen before, so I wasn’t paying all that much attention) and while browsing the internet with my PowerBook I came across iRecord. As I don’t have an iSight for my PowerBook, it would be a pretty useless application. So I just highlighted the URL and pressed copy. This link then magically appeared (the pasteboards sync via Bonjour) on my iMac so I could check it out at a click of a button after the movie finished.

I’ve also used it to transfer large amounts of University notes from one computer to another. You can copy entire documents and simply paste them on another machine, exactly where you want them.

The other reason to upgrade is filters. Filters are a way of performing a transition on the copied item, so as you paste it this transformation occurs. For example, if you used the built in UPPERCASE filter, if you right-click on a pasteboard item and select that filter then that item will be pasted in uppercase.

Clever, huh? That’s just a basic one; these filters can be enhanced further by performing multiple operations in one filter. This allows you to automate some very complex manipulations on text.

The PRO version of this application is available for only $19.99. If you have more than one computer and you like the free version, I would strongly recommend upgrading. If you only have the one machine, once you get the grasp of the filter system it can really have an impact and change the way you work.

For more information about this application check out the PTH website.