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Advanced Copy and Paste Techniques

You may wish to collect into a batch with an application command other than Copy, such as Copy as Pathname in the Finder, or of course Cut. You may also with to paste using an application command other than Paste, such as Paste and Match Style.

Application Command Other Than Copy

As mentioned above and in Beyond the Basics, once in batch mode with the menu bar icon highlighted, anything copied normally in your application will be added to the batch and increment the count in the menu bar.

However, not only will a Copy command or COMMAND (⌘) + C in your frontmost application add to the batch, but also Cut, or any special-purpose command that adds to the clipbaord. Any action that alters the clipboard will be added to the batch, such as:

  • a button on webpage that copies content to the clipboard,
  • clipboard sharing from an iOS device.

Application Command Other Than Paste

It's tricker, and arguably more awkward, to paste from a batch using an application alternate Paste command, but possible. It requires turning on the Show advanced paste menu items option in the Settings tab Advanced. For more details see Advanced Panel.

Turning this on adds the menu item that is titled either Start Pasting From Batch or Skip to Next depending on circumstance. Using them can be illustrated by example ...

Firstly, if you are in the middle of replaying a batch and the next item to paste you wish use your application's special-purpose command instead of the keyboard shortcut CONTROL (^) + COMMAND (⌘) + V or Paste & Advance in the Batch Clipbaord menu.

Imortantly, when you are in the process of pasting from a batch then the next clip to be pasted is already present on the system clipboard, and the advanced paste menu item has the title Skip to Next. What to do is:

  • Invoke your application's special-purpose paste command
  • Use Skip to Next

Secondly, if instead you are collecting clips into a batch and then the first of these you wish to paste using your application's special-purpose command. In this case the next item to paste isn't already on the clipboard, because while still collecting clips into the batch the clipboard contains the most recent thing copied.

In this case the advanced paste menu item has the title Start Pasting From Batch. What to do in this case is:

  • Use Start Pasting From Batch (this places the next clip to paste from the batch onto the system clipboard and the menu item is changed to Skip to Next)
  • Invoke your application's special-purpose paste command
  • Use Skip to Next

A Mental Model (For Deep Thinkers)

You can think of Batch Clipbaord's copy keyboard shortcut, or Copy Into Batch in its menu, as doing:

  1. Start Batch if necessary
  2. invoke your application's standard Copy command

And you can think of the paste keyboard shortcut, or Paste & Advance in the menu, as doing:

  1. Start Pasting From Batch if necessary
  2. invoke your application's standard Paste command
  3. Skip to Next