Did you know that there is a tool called Microsoft ClipBook Viewer utility in Windows XP? Maybe not all of you because it is a hidden utility that is not in Start Menu. Moreover the XP ClipBook Viewer has been removed in Vista. When you cut or copy information from a program, it is moved to the Clipboard and remains there until you clear the Clipboard or until you cut or copy another piece of information. The Clipboard window in ClipBook Viewer shows the contents of the Clipboard. You can paste the information from the Clipboard into any file as often as you like. To launch the ClipBook Viewer in XP, go to Run, type clipbrd and click OK.
There are limitations in the built-in Windows XP Clipboard utility. It can only capture text but not images. The contents of the standard Windows clipboard doesn’t store your clipboard data for a long time. When you turn off the computer or just copy some other text, the data is lost.
I bet you must have experienced the need of the text that you copied 30 minutes or an hour ago. Maybe your computer hung and the program hasn’t saved the data, or maybe you copied some interesting information from a web page, but got distracted and forgot to paste it where you wanted? Or you may simply want to recall what you were doing at the computer a month or a year ago. There are many cases in which you might want to review your clipboard content. So here are 10 free XP ClipBook Viewer replacement.
1. Ditto
Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats and etc.
[ Download Ditto ]
2. ClipX
ClipX is a tiny clipboard history manager, it can be recalled via a hotkey and supports both bitmap and text clipboards. ClipX is very unobstrusive and will change the way you think about clipboard operations. Takes up only 0.6MB memory. Press Ctrl + Shift + V to bring up the clipboard history and enter the number to paste them directly inside your favorite editor.
[ Download ClipX ]
3. Clipdiary
Clipdiary runs on Windows startup, will record everything copied on the clipboard into the its database. Clipdiary can log clipboard history and record data in several formats: plain text, RTF (Rich Text Format) and images (BMP), html, files and so on. So, besides saving parts of text, you can easily make series of screenshots, and Clipdiary will save them for you.
[ Download Clipdiary ]
4. Yankee Clipper 3
A powerful Windows clipboard extender/memory- now in its third generation. Handles Pictures, Richtext, URLS, etc – any size. Features printing, drag and drop, optional permanent storage of clippings. Familiar “Outlook” interface. Freeware.
[ Download Yankee Clipper 3 ]
5. Clipomatic
Clipomatic is a clipboard cache program. It remembers what was copied to the clipboard and allows you to retrieve it, even after you’ve copied something else to the clipboard. Clipomatic only works with text. It works on any modern version of Windows. Only takes up 0.5MB from memory. Default hotkey to bring up the clipboard history is Ctrl+Alt+V and can easily select the data with numbers.
[ Download Clipomatic ]
6. QClip
QClip is a simple clipboard enhancement that allows Windows users to paste text that was clipped earlier. You never have to think about QClip, but when you want to paste something that you clipped a while ago instead of CTRL-V, just press CTRL-ALT-V and QClip will appear with all of your old clips. You can use the arrow keys to select the item you want, then press “Enter”, or use the mouse and click the “Paste” button. QClip only stores plain text clips, and the history is cleared when you reboot or exit QClip. If you find that QClip is no longer receiving clips, right-click the scissors icon in the system tray and select “Reset”. This will cause QClip to re-register for clips with Windows.
[ Download QClip ]
7. ClipGuru
ClipGuru is for the Windows user who prefers clipboard storage features unavailable in the standard Windows clipboard. ClipGuru gives users the ability to recall and reuse current and past clipboard contents, and to optionally save those clips into your own clip Sets for future use. ClipGuru runs in the background and does not affect the normal use of the Windows clipboard. It simply grabs a copy of everything copied to the clipboard and saves it for you. Clipboard items are saved, based on user preference, and kept available for recall at any time.
[ Download ClipGuru ]
8. Clipboard Magic
Clipboard Magic is a Windows clipboard enhancement utility. This clipboard extender can dramatically enhance your productivity when cutting and pasting text or when filling in repetitive web forms.
Note: Clipboard Magic is buggy and I couldn’t get it to work properly.
[ Download Clipboard Magic ]
9. ArsClip
ArsClip is a FREE (freeware) utility for the windows clipboard. ArsClip monitors the clipboard and keeps track of the entries. Press a configurable hotkey and select an item (or items) to quickly paste into a program.
[ Download ArsClip ]
10. Clipboard Caching Tool (CLCL)
CLCL is a clipboard caching tool, that automatically stores all items that have been copied to the Windows clipboard, allowing you to easily go back and retrieve images, text or other objects. You can also maintain a list of permanent items (Template), that can be used to quickly insert frequently used text snippets, images or other clipboard objects. The clipboard items can be accessed from the system tray or a categorized interface. The functionality can be further extended with several plug-ins, that include some text processing options like upper/lower case conversion, adding tags, removing quotes and more. Overall, this is a quite capable little program, but it does not include documentation, and is aimed at more technical users.
[ Download Clipboard Caching Tool ]
A good clipboard manager software must be small in memory usage since it will be running all the time to capture all our clipboard data. It should have a customizable hotkey for us to easily bring out a list of recent clipboard data and can paste the data to a target by pressing the numbers. Finally, it also logs the date/time/location where it got the data from. So far only Clipboard Caching Tool (CLCL) is able to fulfill all the requirements above. CLCL takes up 5MB of memory usage, has customizable hotkeys and easy pasting of recent saved clipboards using numbers to target and also date/time/window of the clipboard being recorded.
Related posts:
I’m using clipX (bluemars.org/clipx/)
for multiple content manipulationand I’m using click.to (clicktoapp.com) to send clipboard content to facebook, twitter or other programmes.
If you want to have multiple copy paste clipboard functionality within a Chrome browser, you can install ‘Smart Clipboard’ extension. It works seamlessly and your clipboard actions are automatically tracked.
link: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bhpmmnjmgiokghailccccelnmhcgoakb
I’m prefer, and using for long time, ClipX.
Using AutoHotkey to process clipboard text before pasting can be a great timesaver. Handing off more complicated string processing to an external exe in your favorite high-level language multiplies the possibilities.
autohotkey.com/
good site .
is there any software like this for linux?
Thats a nice tool, now i dont need to waste time in opening textfile for storing information temporary
ClipMate 7.1 from thornsoft.com is a great program to manage your clips.
Danny, Yankee Clipper 3 allows you to combine all the clips it contains into one big one which you can then paste.
Just right clip on any clip in the YK3 clip window and from the drop down menu choose combine \’top to bottom\’ or \’bottom to top\’. Thus will place the combined clips as the first or active clip ready for pasting.
does enyone knows a utility that allow pating ALL that was
copied in one keystoker ?
be much help thnks
Ziad, I know for a fact that both Yankee Clipper 3 and Phrase Expres (see my post above) work on Vista.
hey
just wondering, any clipboard utility can work on windows vista? thanks alot
nice trick very handy
Hi Ray I really need help. I need a program to monitor an installation. I need to see the files that was copied to the system during the installation process. Please Ray I really need this.
thank you for very nice article. have a nice weekend :)
Thank you for very nice article, have a nice weekend :)
clipbrd.exe referred to as the Clipboard Viewer or the ClipBook Viewer is in XP, situated in C:\Windows\System32\clipbrd.exe. It is now missing as a part of the Vista installation.
You can try to copy it from an XP installation, if you have access to it, and paste it in your Vista System32 folder. In most cases this is know to work.
But if it does not or if you are confronted with a message of sorts : Entry Point Not Found, then you may try to run it in XP/SP2 compatibility mode.
Incidentally, Clip.exe is a different file, which is a part of Microsoft Word/Office Clip Organizer. It is a cmd command.
Karens Clipboard Viewer or ClipMagic are two I prefer.
I used to be a big YKIII fan, however, I found it problematic if you did a forced system shut down, i.e. it tended to ‘lose’ its history file. On the recommendations of a friend I replaced it with Phrase Express. This is a great clipboard freebie, at least for non commercial use, though it is much more than just a clipboard extender and there is a USB disk version s well.
phraseexpress.com/download.htm
There is also a Phrase Express server that allows it to work across networks, but that option is not freeware.
Also have a look at the Phrases page for useful Phrase addons.
I have no connection with them, just a very satisifed user.
Hi
Clipmagic is now freeware!!!
clipmagic.com/
Useful post I was always intrigued in why its not on the start icon, but here is how!!!
Here\\\\\\\’s how to put Windows XP\\\\\\\’s Clipbook Viewer onto your Start menu.
1)Click the Start menu button and open My Computer.
2)Open your C drive. (It\\\\\\\’s listed in the Hard Disk Drives section.)
3)Double-click on the Windows folder. (You might have to tell it to let you see what\\\\\\\’s inside.)
4)Double-click on the System32 folder. (Again, you might have to tell it to let you see what\\\\\\\’s inside.)
5)Scroll down the page until you locate a file named Clipbrd.
6)Drag and drop the Clipbrd file onto your Start button.
To put a shortcut to that file on your Desktop, right-click the Clipbrd file, choose SendTo, and choose Desktop (Create Shortcut).
How To Clear The Contents Of The Clipboard: Windows Xp:
1)Begin by first clicking on the Start Button.
2)Then click on Run Icon, which will open up the Run Menu for you.
3)Locate the white area of the screen next to the word Open: in the Run Menu.
4)Now type in the abbreviated word Clipbrd and click on the OK button to launch the Program.
5)Notice how the Clipboard contains a record of your recent copy and paste inputs.
6)To empty your Clipboard, click on the word Edit located within your top tool bar area.
7)Then click on the word Delete from the pull down menu that appears.
8)Windows will ask you if you want to Clear the contents of the Clipboard.
9)Click on the Yes button to allow Windows to clear the Clipboard.
10)Notice how your former imputed information is now cleared from the Clipboard.
11)Then close the Clipbook Viewer Window to return to your Windows session.
Nice tip.Good to have you back Raymond!!!
Cheers mate!
thanks raymond i need it…. thank u very much…..
Clipx is the best clip board caching tool out of all these.
thx ray!
Hamsin Clipboard 3.03, only 48 Kb
iisr-cnc.com/hamsin/
Congratulations Raymond for your blog!
hi raymond !! sometimes i wonder how do you find such lovely utilities…….and yes raymond.cc is always the first site which i open when i get up in the morning…..
Thanx Raymmod, I have been keeping my eye out for something like this for a long time, but I have been to busy to go looking for it and you brung it to me… Thanx again.
Also this one– gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=0f6a9526-97aa-4b6f-9b24-95b193c158d4
Useful post Raymond. A similar Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget to monitor clipboard is here- gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3b63cefe-8c42-4196-8bbc-49d58bc1d19c&bt=1&pl=1
Great post, I could have used this a while back when I was looking for a clipboard substitute. It took several days to find one. I use ArsClip because not only does it keep a history of recent clips but one can also set up a number of permanent items and assign hotkeys to them. Quite handy!
Wow, just what I needed! Thanks Raymond! I am one to copy lots of things to the clipboard, but the other program I used to retreive it was shareware and my trial expired. Thanks for this find!