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Kill the clipboard

Gregg Keizer ZDNet US

Published: 08 Jul 2002

I can't get rid of the clipboard…

"I constantly cut and paste among Office applications, including Word and Excel, but the clipboard always gets in my way. This digital stalker crowds my workspace and jumps out at the most unpredictable times. I'm also sick of that little icon in the system tray that tells me every time I copy something to the clipboard -- as if I didn't know! Can you help me kill the clipboard?"

Analysis

Office XP dramatically beefed up Office 2000's weak clipboard by making it able to hold 24 items instead of only 12. And the clipboard now occupies the same space as XP's new Task Panes -- to the right of the document window. The larger capacity is a godsend for heavy-duty cut-and-paste artists, since you can copy or cut selections from any Office application, hold them there, and then paste them into other documents in any order you choose just by pointing and clicking. But because the clipboard pops up whenever you use the copy or cut commands twice in a row, it often blocks your document while you're trying to work.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to control the clipboard.

Advice

If the Office clipboard isn't already open, call it up via Edit > Office Clipboard. To keep the clipboard from popping up unexpectedly, click the Options button near the bottom of the clipboard's display and clear the check mark beside ‘Show Office clipboard automatically’. While you're at it, if you don't want the clipboard icon to appear in the system tray or balloon pop-ups, clear the check boxes beside ‘Show Office clipboard icon on Taskbar’ and ‘Show status near Taskbar when copying’. Leave the check mark next to ‘Collect without showing Office clipboard’ so that XP will still copy multiple items to the clipboard.

Keep the clipboard at bay by clicking the Options button and unchecking all the boxes except the one displayed here.

After you've banished the clipboard, you can resurrect it whenever you need to. Use the Edit > Office Clipboard command to pop it into view. Select any item you see and click it to copy it to the current cursor position in the document.

The key to success

If you've ditched the clipboard icon in the system tray, we recommend that you assign a key combination to quickly call up the clipboard at any time. Here's how:

-- Select Tools > Customize and click the Keyboard button near the bottom of the ensuing dialogue box. -- Under Categories, scroll down and highlight Edit, then under Commands, choose Edit > Office > Clipboard. -- Place your cursor in the ‘Press new shortcut key’ box and hit Alt+Shift+C (our favourite combination) or a key combination of your own. -- Click Close, both here and in the next dialogue.

Now, when you press Alt+Shift+C or the combination you specified, the Office clipboard appears.

Put Clipboard in its place

Even with all these safeguards in place, the clipboard may still annoy you. It sometimes inserts itself into your document window and obscures your work. Fortunately, there's an easy way to keep the clipboard from blocking your view. With the clipboard visible, click the top of its display, the part that reads ‘X of 24 -- Clipboard’, and drag it to the side. You can place this pane anywhere on the desktop, but right beside your document window is a convenient place. Once placed, the pane remembers its location, even after you shut down and restart Office XP.

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