Paste into a document

marjori · Oct 18, 2010

In my OLD Windows, there was a NOTEPAD utility so that if, for example, I want to copy a web page but not all the images, etc I could hilite what I want, copy and then paste into NOTEPAD. I gues in MAC Snow Leapord I could use Stickies for this function, but is there another place I can go to get something like a document into which I can paste? I WILL NOT use MS Office products and I do use OPEN OFFICE but it's a bit slow.

MYmacROX · Oct 18, 2010

Text Edit. Look in your Applications folder.

technologist · Oct 18, 2010

If you're using Safari, just select an area of the page and choose
Safari > Services > New TextEdit Window Containing Selection

(If the "New TextEdit Window Containing Selection" item does not appear when you make a selection, open Services preferences and make sure it's checked in the list.)

Also, you may want to get the shift keys on your keyboard checked out by Apple. You seem to be capitalizing words at random in your post.

IvanLasston · Oct 18, 2010

technologist said:
If you're using Safari, just select an area of the page and choose
Safari > Services > New TextEdit Window Containing Selection

(If the "New TextEdit Window Containing Selection" item does not appear when you make a selection, open Services preferences and make sure it's checked in the list.)

Excellent point - Services is available in all web browsers by the way. I just tried this in Google Chrome and it works there. I have actually started using MacJournal for all my note taking/clipping needs and there is a service for that. I can also set a hotkey to do the clip into MacJournal. There are several journaling/notebook apps out there including Circus Ponies Notebook that could be used for the same thing. I used to just clip stuff into Stickes and RTFD files but found it got unwieldy managing.

toMACsh · Oct 18, 2010

technologist said:
If you're using Safari, just select an area of the page and choose
Safari > Services > New TextEdit Window Containing Selection

Actually, that's Safari > Services > TextEdit > New Window Containing Selection (in OS 10.5.8 anyway)

Good tip though. I've never used this, but it could come in handy some day.

technologist · Oct 19, 2010

IvanLasston said:
Services is available in all web browsers by the way. I just tried this in Google Chrome and it works there.

It may or may not. It seems to be flakier on other browsers.

toMACsh said:
Actually, that's Safari > Services > TextEdit > New Window Containing Selection (in OS 10.5.8 anyway)

Yes, it's different under Snow Leopard. 10.6.x cleaned up and simplified the Services menu a lot.

IvanLasston · Oct 20, 2010

technologist said:
It may or may not. It seems to be flakier on other browsers.

Dunno - it seems that if the service is enabled it shows up in all my browsers. I tried it in Camino, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox and the service is there when text is selected. What makes you say it is flaky? It seems that services has been pretty consistent for me throughout many applications.

technologist · Oct 20, 2010

IvanLasston said:
Dunno - it seems that if the service is enabled it shows up in all my browsers. I tried it in Camino, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox and the service is there when text is selected. What makes you say it is flaky? It seems that services has been pretty consistent for me throughout many applications.

When I use it from Firefox in Snow Leopard, I get a message (from TextEdit) that says,

There might be an internal error or a performance problem, or the source application may be providing text of invalid type in the service request. Please try the operation a second time. If that doesn’t work, copy/paste the selection into TextEdit.

Oddly, it works fairly well on my Leopard machine.

From Chrome, the service does not appear. [EDIT: This fixed itself when I updated to Chrome 7. Now I get unstyled text, like Opera, which is fine.]

From Opera, I get plain, unstyled text with no links or images.

In Safari, it works fine (Styled text, links, and graphics.)

Like I said, your mileage may vary. Services support is usually good for OS X applications. Ports of Windows apps usually have lousy Services support.