D-Mac's Stuff

When I copy text on a computer, most often I want to paste it without the accompanying formatting. On both MacOS X and Windows, there is no built-in way to do this that works in all applications. After trying several approaches, I found freeware solutions that provide a hotkey for that missing function.

Mac (tested on 10.6 Snow Leopard):

1. Download Spark and the Plain Clip Plug for Spark (I couldn’t get the regular Plain Clip application to do the paste part, so I had to use the special Spark plugin version).
2. Open the Spark disk image and drag Spark to your Applications folder.
3. Create the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Spark/PlugIns
4. Open the Plain Clip Plug disk image and drag Plain Clip Plug.spact to the ~/Library/Application Support/Spark/PlugIns folder.
5. Double-click Applications/Spark to run it.
6. The first time Spark runs, it shows a screen including two checkboxes, to activate Spark at login and immediately. Leave them checked.
7. File>New HotKey>Plain Clip
8. Type a name for the hotkey (such as “Paste Plain Text”), check the Send Command-V keystroke box, and click on the Shortcut box and press Command-Option-v (or whatever key you want to be the shortcut).
9. Click Create
10. Now Command-Option-v pastes the clipboard as plain text.

Mac (tested on 10.13 High Sierra):

1. Plain Clip doesn’t work on High Sierra.
2. Use the free “Get Plain Text” app from the App Store.

Windows (tested on Windows XP and 7 RC):

1. Download PureText
2. Unzip PureText by right-clicking on the Zip file and selecting Extract All
3. Create the folder C:\Program Files\PureText
4. Copy PureText.exe to C:\Program Files\PureText
5. Double-click C:\Program Files\PureText\PureText.exe to run it. It opens as an icon in the system tray.
6. Right-click the PT icon in the system tray and select Options.
7. Check the box Automatically run PureText each time I log on to Windows, uncheck Play a sound, and click OK.
8. Now Windows-v pastes the clipboard as plain text.