Copying and pasting text in Windows is as easy as pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V on your keyboard right? That’s what I’ve always thought and it is even true until now. However, after discovering some of the useful clipboard manager applications out there, I found that copying and pasting is not just restricted to simple keyboard shortcuts. With a little imagination, it can do lot of things and make your life easier and more efficient.

1. Freeclip

Freeclip is a simple clipboard manager that comes with several useful functions. It keeps a record of the last 25 clips you have copied, regardless whether it is a line of text, URL, application shortcut, or images. Whenever you hover over the items on the clipboard, it reveals up a preview window showing you the content of the copied item. The default option is for you to activate it via the mouse (click on the icon at the system tray), but you are free to configure your hotkey in the configuration menu.

One of the things that I like about FreeClip is the ability to add buttons to the clip and modify them on the fly. For example, you can add a Uppercase/Lowercase button so that you can pasted the text in UPPERCASE or lowercase with a single click. There are several buttons available to add including Run applications, Email buttons, form filling, Firefox bookmarks button etc.

2. Arsclip

ArsClip is a small clipboard that does not require any installation. You can easily double-click to fire it up and get it running. It records the last 15 entry of the copied items, but can be adjusted to accept up to 100 records.

The ArsClip user interface is not really that bad, but the good thing about this application is that it gives you plenty of configuration options so you can mix and match until you find the settings that best suits you. You can configure the hotkey to use, the popup options, what to be copied and how it should treat non-text items (such as picture or filenames).

3. Yankee Clipper 3

When you use Yankee Clipper to manage your clipboard, it can sort out the things that you are copying/pasting and place them in the respective order. For example, if you copy an image from the web, Yankee Clipper 3 will show the item on the Pictures list. The same goes for a string of text, URL and rich text. YC3 allows you to save up to 200 items on the clipboard and there is no limit to the size of the clipping.

The best thing about Yankee Clipper is that you can save your clipping to the boilerplates (just like a template) and keep them for future usage. If you find that you are copying/pasting the same things over and over again, the boilerplate is definitely an useful tool for you.

4. Ditto-CP

Ditto-CP is an open-source portable clipboard that uses the SQlite database to store all your clippings. When you first use it, you will find that it is just the same as any other clipboard manager. However, on further exploration, you will discover many other useful features that are not available in other applications.

First, Ditto-CP allows you to connect to other computers and sync your clippings with each computer. You won’t have to recreate all your clippings again when on a different computer. Secondly, it supports the ‘search as you type’ feature on its clipboard. If you have plenty of items on the clipboard, this feature is definitely very useful for you.

Thirdly, there are plenty of settings that you can configure, including creating hotkeys to access the first ten items in the clipboard. There is also a stats menu where you can view the number of copied/pasted performed and the database size.

Previously covered in MakeUseOf

5. Clipx

Mark had previously wrote a great article featuring the usefulness of Clipx. The best thing about Clipx is that it remembers up to 1024 clippings and you can set ClipX to purge itself when you shutdown your PC. There is also a bunch of useful plug-ins to improve ClipX’s functionality.

6. Clipguru

Another useful Clipboard manager is Clipguru, featured by Karl a while back. After you have captured your clippings on your clipboard, you can combine various selections and search through what has already been captured and edit those notes. A useful feature if you want to edit the stuffs that you have copied.

Using a Mac? Not to worry, Jackson wrote about the best free clipboard managers to run on Mac OS X.

What other clipboard manager do you use to make your copy/paste easier? Paste them in the comments.

Image credit: stupid is the new clever