Features / Help

This is the documentation for Quick Clipboard Editor v3. See last v2 documentation here.

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Quick Clipboard Editor (QCE) is a FREE Windows editor. Based on the powerful Scintilla editor, it gives you direct access to the Clipboard’s text allowing to quickly make the changes you need before pasting it to your target application. It remembers your past clips with all their formatting including images and allow to paste them back as they are or with text modifications.

  • make quick touch-ups on text or extensive edits with powerful editing tools
  • quickly paste clips from the Clipboard history
  • paste past clips with all their formatting (image, HTML, etc.)
  • paste current clip as text only (removing formatting)
  • display text in a distraction-free window or use code editing aids such as auto-indentation
  • pin frequently used clips in a dedicated popup menu to load or paste them with a hotkeys
  • find and replace
  • insert or trim content on each line
  • keep or delete lines or characters based on various criteria
  • reformat paragraphs and clean-up punctuation
  • sort by all sort of criteria
  • change case of text or portion of text
  • convert text for various needs (HTML, XML, PHP, AHK, etc.)
  • encode the full Clipboard or an image to Base64 text and decode Base64 text
  • open and save text in the editor from/to file with various encoding and end-of-line formats;
  • save to a file the image currently in the Clipboard or from the the Clipboard history or load an image to the Clipboard;
  • backup/restore Clipboard binary content to disk;
  • save frequently used commands, add them to a menu or assign them to hotkeys
  • automate Clipboard transformations by launching saved commands from external applications (batch file, scripts, QAP favorites, etc.)
  • Use Quick Access Popup to add frequently used Clipboard commands to your menu.

QCE is an directly connected to your Clipboard allowing to open it, do changes and send the edited text directly to your target application, all this in only a few clicks!

Quick Start

Download Quick Clipboard Editor here and install it using the Easy Setup program.

When first launched, QCE offers two initial configurations: the Basic Setup configuration for those who prefer a simple and distraction-free editor and the Power User Setup configuration for coders and users who prefer to take advantage of the most advanced editing features. In any case, you can customize the configuration to select the best options for you in the Options menu. See below for a description of the options. If you closed this window, you can reopen it under Help, Show QCE Welcome window.

Once installed, you can open the QCE editor, copy text or images from any application or paste the content from the editor to any application. Here are the main hotkeys to use:

  • Open the editor with Ctrl + Middle Mouse button or with the keyboard shortcut Shift + Win + V.
  • Copy text from any application and edit it in QCE using the hotkey Ctrl + Win + C.
  • Paste the content of QCE to your application with the hotkey Ctrl + Win + V.

Get in touch with QCE developer Jean Lalonde to ask question, report bugs or make suggestions on the Quick Clipboard Editor Users Forum.

Tray Menu

Right-click on the QCE icon on the task bar to open the Tray menu. This menu gives direct access to these features.

  • Open the Editor window.
  • Open the Options or Help submenus.
  • Restore the QCE editor window position to the center of the screen.
  • Toggle the Suspend Hotkeys command.
  • Open the QCE Settings Folder where you can edit the Settings file QuickClipboardEditor.ini and find the SQLite database QCE-DB4.db.
  • Restart Quick Clipboard Editor or Exit Quick Clipboard Editor.

Upgrading from previous versions

Upgrading from v2.x to QCE v3

The main change in v3 is the replacement of the basic text editor (similar to the old Windows Notepad accessory) with the powerful Scintilla editor used in many popular editors such as Notepad++ and SciTE. New editing options can be found under Options, Editor Window. The QCE database retains the same structure as in v2 and all your past clips and saved commands will be preserved. Only the editor window color may need to be redefined. New options added in v3 are set with default values that you can edit in the Options window.

Upgrading from v1.2.x to QCE v3

QCE v3 maintain most options settings from v1.2.x, including preferences for launch, hotkeys, history, etc. New options added in v3 are set with default values that you can edit in the Options window.

At its first execution, QCE v3 creates a new database file named QCE-DB4.db. It retrieves automatically Saved commands from your v1.2.x database (if it exists). However, because of the major changes in the history database structure, your past clips are not imported from v1 to v2 (your previous database file is not deleted but is renamed with the “IMPORTED” tag).

Settings folder location

Normally, if you installed QCE with the Easy Setup file, QCE settings are saved in a folder named Quick Clipboard Editor under your Documents folder (usually C:\Users\User Name\Documents\Quick Clipboard Editor). If you choose to run QCE in portable mode (from the ZIP file), settings are saved in the folder where you unzipped and launched QCE.

In both cases (setup or portable), the location of the settings folder can be changed with the command line parameter /Working:[working_dir_path]. For example, to launch QCE with settings in the folder C:\My QCE Settings, create a file shortcut and set the target to “C:\Program Files\Quick Clipboard Editor\QuickClipboardEditor.exe” “/Working:C:\My QCE Settings“ (including the double quotes).

EDITOR WINDOW

The editor window with the Commands menu open.

General

  • To display the editor window, hit Ctrl + Middle Mouse Button or press Shift + Win + V (these shortcuts can be changed in the Options menu).
  • When displayed, the editor initially contains the actual text in the Clipboard ready to be edited. It can also contain the image in the editor (images cannot be edited at this time).
  • You can copy the selected text in any application and edit it immediately in QCE using the hotkey Ctrl + Win + C.
  • You can also display the History Quick Paste list with Shift + Ctrl + ` (backtick). See how to quickly paste the selected item by simply releasing the Ctrl key.

Viewing and Editing

  • The editor can be in one of these three modes.
    • Synced: When the content of the editor is identical to the current content of the Clipboard, any change in the Clipboard as you copy or cut text or images from any application (outside of QCE) is immediately reflected in the QCE editor in Synced mode.
    • History: You can retrieve previous clips from the Clipboard history in the editor by clicking the left ◀ and right ▶ arrow buttons. As long as you navigate in the history clips without editing the content, QCE remains in History mode.
    • Editing: As soon as the content of the editor differs from the Clipboard or from the last retrieved History clip, QCE changes to Editing mode and works as any editor. You can add pieces of text using the Edit menu commands Copy (Ctrl + C), Cut (Ctrl + X) and Paste (Ctrl + V) as you would do with any other editor.
  • When the editor is in Synced mode…
    • It is synchronized with the Clipboard.
    • Copying or cutting text or images in any other application updates instantly the content of the editor.
  • When the editor is in Editing mode (for text content only at this time)…
    • You have access to a large set of tools in the Edit, Find/Replace, Sort, Change case and Convert menus described below.
    • You can revert changes in the editor using the Edit, Undo and Edit, Redo menus. You can also click the Cancel button to restore the current Clipboard in the editor.
    • When you’re done with your changes, click the Copy button to put the content of the editor back in the Clipboard or hit the Paste button to paste the content of the editor in the last active application (the window active before activating the QCE editor).

Editing with Scintilla

The Scintilla editor component used by QCE (as many popular text editors, including Notepad++ and SciTE) offers advanced text editing capabilities.

Multiple selections, rectangle selection and multi-line typing

To enable the following features select Allow multiple selection under Options, Editor Window.

  • Multiple Selections: Select multiple non-contiguous portions of text with Ctrl + Click. The following QCE commands are applied to all selected areas: Change case, Substring, Insert string, Filter lines, Filter characters, Reformat paragraph, Convert text (all encode and decode commands), Find, Find and replace, Save text file, Convert colors and Convert numbers.
  • Text rectangles: make rectangular selections with Alt + Click. Click the top-left of the rectangle, press Alt, drag the mouse to the bottom-right of the rectangle and release Alt. The same commands listed above for multiple selections are also supported with rectangular selections.
  • Multi-selection typing: when a multiple selection is active, hit Left or Right to select the beginning or end of every selection. Then type characters, move the caret or delete characters simultaneously in all selections.
  • Multi-line typing: use Shift + Alt + Up or Shift + Alt + Down to select multiple lines and insert or delete text in every line simultaneously.

Other editing tips:

  • Line Manipulation: move one or selected lines up with Shift + Ctrl + Up or down with Shift + Ctrl + Down.
  • Editing options: under Options, Editor Window, select the Tab Width, set the visibility of Indentation guides (visual vertical lines indicating indentation levels) and Auto-indentation (automatic indentation of new lines based on the previous line’s indentation), Display line numbers (allowing to click on line numbers to select lines) and Highlight active line (the line containing the insertion point).

Tool Bar

The toolbar includes frequently used commands that control the editor window. These commands settings when you launch QCE can be set in the Editor Window settings using the Options, Editor Window dialog box. These settings are described below in the Options section.

  • The first options in the tool bar above the editor box allows to choose between a Fixed width font or a proportional font and to set the Font size.
  • The Always on top keeps the QCE window visible when other application windows are activated.
  • The Word wrap fit long lines of text inside the editor window’s width.
  • The See invisible reveals the end-of-line, space and tab characters in the editor.

Bottom Buttons

The buttons at the bottom of the editor determine what to do with the text you edited.

QCE bottom buttons and status bar
  • Paste: the first button saves the content of the editor to the Clipboard, then switch to the last used application and paste the text at the cursor location in this window. If the current content from the Clipboard history contains various formats (image, HTML, etc.) the receiving application selects what format is pasted.
  • Paste Text: when the editor shows a clip containing various formats (text, HTML, RTF, etc.), the Paste Text button pastes the content of the editor but as text only.
  • Copy: this button saves the content of the editor to the Clipboard and keeps the editor open (this button is enabled as soon as the editor’s content differs from the current Clipboard).
  • Cancel: this button reverts editor content to the current content of the Clipboard and keeps the editor open.
  • Close: to close the editor window.
  • History buttons: The arrow buttons ◀ and ▶ on each sides of the window retrieve clips from the Clipboard history collected by a QCE background task (load QCE at Windows startup to collect all your Clipboard changes). The left button (Alt + Left) retrieves the previous history clip and the right button (Alt + Right) returns to next clips. Right-clicking on the History buttons display the History menu (more info under Clipboard menu section below).
The History menu

Pinned clips

To keep frequently used clipseasily available, add them to the Pinned clips menu.

To pin the clip currently in the editor, select Clipboard, Manage Pinned clips (or hit F4) to open the Manage Pinned clips dialog box. Select the position for this clip and click the Pin button. If you select a position currently assigned, the previous clip will be replaced. To remove a pinned clip, select it and click Unpin.

Pinned clips are easily accessible by clicking the Pin button. As illustrated beside:

  • right-click the Pin button to load the selected clip in the editor;
  • or left-click the button to paste the clip in the QCE editor (only text clips can be pasted in the editor).

The Pinned clips can also be pasted in the editor using the hotkeys Alt + 1 to Alt + 0.

 

Status Bar

  • The left section of the status bar shows the length of the editor’s content with the label Synced when the content is synchronized with the Clipboard, History when browsing the history clips or Editing when the content of the editor differs from the current Clipboard or the last clip retrieved from the Clipboard History. Click on this section of the status bar for more info.
  • The second section shows the current cursor position: line number, column position on current line, position from the beginning of the editor and length of selected text. It also shows the ASCII code of the first character selected. If the editor contains an image, this section show the dimension of the image (width and height in pixels, and number of bytes of the image).
  • The last section shows the formats (text, image, HTML, RTF, etc.) currently in the Clipboard or in the history clip loaded in the editor. Click on this section of the status bar to open the Inspect Clipboard dialog box to get more details on these formats.

Clipboard images

When QCE is synced and the Clipboard contains an image, this image is shown in the editor and the status bar indicates its dimensions. QCE also shows images retrieved from the Clipboard History. They can be previewed before you decide to paste it in your application. In the current version, these images can only be pasted. They can’t (yet) be edited.

 

History Search and Quick Paste windows

History Search window

  • Open the History Search window from the QCE menu bar under Clipboard, History Search or press Ctrl+P.
  • The window is open with the most recent clip from your Clipboard history is selected.
  • Filter clips from the Clipboard history using the search box at the top of the window.
  • Select one or multiple clips using standard keyboard or mouse techniques (use Ctrl + Click to select multiple clips).
  • Users can paste or delete multiple clips in this window, but can only edit one clip.
  • Click a button at the bottom of the window or select an action from the context menu (Paste, Edit or Delete).
  • Clips are pasted in the QCE editor. A configurable separator is inserted between multiple clips.
  • To find a clip, simply type a few letters. The more letters you type the more precise is the search result. Clips containing these letters will be listed with most recent first.
  • You can do a more specific search by typing multiple sequences separated by space. For example, type qui cli to search items containing “qui” AND “cli”. You can align up to 5 words or sequences of characters.
  • Only the first 250 characters are displayed but the history database contains the full clips.
  • You can hit the Delete button to remove the selected clip(s) from the history database. Also, you can open the context menu (2) by right-clicking a clip. This menu allows to Edit, Paste or Delete the clip.
 

Quick Paste window

  • From any application window, press Ctrl + ` (backtick) to open the window with the most recent clip selected.
  • Without releasing Ctrl, press ` (backtick) again to cycle through older clips (see Quick Paste cycling below).
  • Release the Ctrl key to exit Quick Paste cycling and paste the selected clip to the active application window.
  • Press the Home key to filter clips using the search box.
  • During the Quick Paste cycling, press the Win key to escape cycling and leave the window open after releasing the Ctrl key.
  • Alternatively, you can press Ctrl + Win + ` (backtick) to open the Quick Paste window normally, without cycling.
  • After exiting Quick Paste cycling, users can select one or more items and click a button or choose an action from the context menu (Paste, Paste Text, Edit, or Delete).
 

Quick Paste cycling

Click to see the full video with audio

As demonstrated in the animation on the right, while the Ctrl key is maintained pressed, you can:

  • hit the backtick key (`) the number of times required to scroll down in the list of previous clips and select the desired clip;
  • releasing the Ctrl key exits the cycling, closes the Quick Paste window and pastes the selected clip in the active application window;
  • while the Ctrl key is maintained pressed, hit the Down and Up keys to select a previous clips in the history list and paste it in the active application when you release the Ctrl key;
  • also press the Shift key to paste the selected text in Text only when you release the Ctrl key;
  • hit Left Win or Right Win to escape the Quick Paste cycling (this avoids pasting when the Ctrl key is released), leaving the Quick Paste window open;
  • hit the Home key to move the cursor to the Search box at the top of the window in order to filter the list (this exits the cycling).

After you escaped the Quick Paste action, you can:

  • use the Down, Up, End and Home keys to select an history item in the list;
  • click the Search box at the top of the window (or hit Up key until you reach to Search box) and filter the list;
  • hit letters (a-z) or digits (0-9) to move the focus to the Search box and start a search (for technical reasons, only non-accentuated letters can be captured to change the focus to the text box);
  • select one or multiple clips with the Shift + Click or Ctrl + Click
  • hit the Paste or Paste Text buttons to paste the clip(s) in the active application;
  • click Edit to load the selected clip(s) in the editor;
  • click Delete to remove the selected clip(s) from clipboard history;
  • click Close (or hit Esc) to to close the History Search window.
Quickly edit, paste formatted or paste text only
Filtering the Quick Paste list
Select multiple clips. Use the context menu.

Quick Paste Hotkey variations

In Options, Hotkeys, users can select the main hotkey (default: ` backtick). Three hotkey variations are available:

  1. Ctrl + `: Opens the “Quick Paste” window and pastes the selected clip when Ctrl is released.
  2. Shift + Ctrl + `: Opens the “Quick Paste” window and pastes the clip as text.
  3. Win + Ctrl + `: Opens the “Quick Paste” window and keeps it open after releasing Ctrl (exits Quick Paste cycling).

Tips

  • To paste immediately the current content of the Clipboard, simply hit and release the Quick Paste hotkey (by default Ctrl + `).
  • To paste in text only the current content of the Clipboard, simply hit and release the Quick Paste Text hotkey (by default Shift + Ctrl + `).

Settings under Options, Clipboard History section allow to:

  • select the size of image previews in History Search window, Quick Paste window and History menus;
  • select the font style (fixed or not) and font size of the History Search window;
  • remember the last History Search window position.

Regular expressions

In QCE, regular expressions can be used in commands Filter Lines and Find/Replace. Regular expression syntax vary slightly from one implementation to another. In QCE, it follows the AutoHotkey RegEx syntax described here.

Here is a RegEx example using the Find and replace command. It uses pattern matching to replace all curly brackets in the text with parenthesis.

Editor content:{Dropbox}, {OneDrive}, {GoogleDrive} and {iCloudDrive}
Find what:{(\w*)}
Replace with:($1)
Result in the editor:(Dropbox), (OneDrive), (GoogleDrive) and (iCloudDrive)

About modes and options

In the AHK RegEx implementation, specifying modes or options is done by adding options letters at the very beginning of the regular expression followed by a close-parenthesis. For example, the pattern i)abc would search for “abc” in upper or lower case. By default regex searches are case sensitive but the i) Ignore Case option makes them case insensitive.

 

MENU BAR

File

With the File menu, you can save/load text or images and backup/restore the content of the Clipboard.

The Save file dialog box
  • Open text file (Ctrl+O) loads a text file to the editor, to the Clipboard or to both.
    • The text file can be loaded with various file encodings: ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-8 No BOM, UTF-16, UTF-16 No BOM and custom codepage. See the option Custom encoding under Options, Various to set the custom codepage (default 850).
    • An option allows to replace the whole editor content or insert the file at cursor position (or replace selection).
  • Save text file (Ctrl+E) saves to disk the text in the editor.
    • The text can be saved with various end-of-line encodings: Windows (CR/LF), Unix (LF) or Max (CR).
    • The text can be saved with various file encodings (same as above).
    • An option allows to save the whole editor or only the selected text.
  • Load image to Clipboard and replace the current content of the editor
    • Supported file types are: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, Exif, WMF, and EMF.
  • Save image to file saves the image in the editor to a file of type set according to the file name extension.
    • Supported file types are: BMP, DIB, GIF, JFIF, JPE, JPEG, JPG, PNG, RLE, TIF and TIFF.
    • With JPEG formats, you can set a compression level ranging between 0 and 100.
  • Backup Clipboard saves the binary content of the Clipboard (including all formats) to a binary file.
  • Restore Clipboard loads a binary backup file to the Clipboard (including all formats).
  • Close the editor (Esc) closes the QCE window.
  • Restart Quick Clipboard Editor resets the editor (in case something goes wrong).
  • Exit Quick Clipboard Editor (Alt + F4) quits the application and stops Clipboard history collect.
 

Clipboard

The Clipboard menu give access to commands allowing to copy, paste or extract the content of the Clipboard in various ways.

  • Copy to the Clipboard (Ctrl + S) saves the editor content (with all its formats) to the Clipboard and return to the Synced mode.
  • Paste to the last active application saves the editor content to the Clipboard and paste it to the application active before you activated QCE. You can also hit the hotkey Ctrl + Win + V to paste the editor text in any active application window (this hotkey can be changed in the Options).
  • Paste as Text to the last active application saves the text in the editor to the Clipboard and paste this text to the application active before you activated QCE. This eliminates any formatting coming from web pages HTML or RTF copied in applications like Word.
  • Cancel changes and revert to the Clipboard restores the current Clipboard content in the editor.
  • Clipboard History submenu displays the last 25 clips form the Clipboard history . A clip selected in the menu is loaded in the editor.
  • History Search (Ctrl + P) opens the Clipboard History Search box (see History Search and Quick Paste above).
  • Select Inspect Clipboard to review different formats in the Clipboard (see below).
  • Use Copy the text in the editor to Clipboard As Format… to load the source in the editor (HTML or RTF) or the list of files in the editor to the Clipboard.
  • Select Get the text or source code for Clipboard Format… to extract to the editor the the text only (without formatting), the source code of the HTML or RTF content of the Clipboard or the list of files copied in Explorer.
  • Select Manage Pinned Clip (or press F4) to keep a frequently used clip in the Pinned clips menu. See Pinned Clips above.
  • Use hotkeys Alt + 1 to Alt + 0 to paste one of the pinned clips in the QCE editor.
  • Delete this history clip removes a clip from the history database.
  • Delete history database flushes the content of the Clipboard history.
QCE History menu open from the menu bar
 

Clipboard formats

Inspect Clipboard

The Inspect Clipboard dialog box shows the various formats available for the content copied to the Clipboard or loaded in the editor from the Clipboard history. Applications saving data to the Clipboard can store different formats for various needs. In this example below, the text copied from MS Word can be pasted as Unicode text, HTML, RTF and other binary formats. When you paste the Clipboard, it is the application where you paste that decides what format to retrieve. The CF_LOCALE indicate the localization of the content copied (3084 stands for French – Canada, in this example). If the Clipboard content changed, you can hit Refresh to update the list.

For each format, the dialog box indicates the format number (in decimal and hexadecimal), the format name (for example “CF_UNICODETEXT”), the size of the content and, when possible, the first characters of the content. Links give access to help on Clipboard formats and CF LOCALE Help from Microsoft website.

Some text formats can be retrieved in the editor by right-clicking on a format or using the Load button. For example, you can retrieve the HTML source code code the content saved by Word in the Clipboard.

Get the text or source code for Clipboard Format

You can load to the editor the clip content in a specific format with the command Clipboard, Get the text or source code for Clipboard Format. You can load in the editor the Clipboard content in these formats (if available):

  • Get Clipboard Text: load in the editor the text copied to the Clipboard (this is automatically done when copying text).
  • Get Clipboard HTML: load in the editor the HTML source code from the Clipboard.
  • Get Clipboard RTF: load in the editor the Rich Text Format source code from the Clipboard.
  • Get Clipboard Files: load in the editor the list of files copied to the Clipboard (this is automatically done when copying files).

Copy the text in the editor to Clipboard As Format

You can also save to the Clipboard the content of the editor in various formats with the Clipboard, Copy the text in the editor to Clipboard As Format. You can copy the text or source code in the Editor to the Clipboard in these formats (take note that QCE will also copy the source code to the Clipboard in the format CF_UNICODE):

  • Copy to Clipboard As HTML: load the HTML source in the editor to the Clipboard as HTML (allowing to paste it in an editor supporting HTML like MS Word).
  • Copy to Clipboard As RTF: load the RTF source in the editor to the Clipboard as Rich Text Format (allowing to paste it in an editor supporting RTF like MS Word).
  • Copy to Clipboard As Files: load a list of files in the editor to the Clipboard as Files (as when using the Copy command in Explorer) allowing to Paste them in Explorer or other file managers.
  • Cut to Clipboard As Files: load a list of files in the editor to the Clipboard (as when using the Cut command in Explorer) allowing to move them in Explorer or other file managers using the Paste command.

Edit

  • You can open the Edit menu in the editor from the menu bar or using Right-Click or pressing Shift + F10.
  • The Undo (Ctrl+Z) and Redo (Ctrl-Y) commands allow to revert to a previous capture of the editor’s content.
  • The standard Edit menu commands Cut (Ctrl + X), Copy (Ctrl + C), Paste (Ctrl + V), Delete (Del) and Select All (Ctrl + A) work as in any editor.
  • Move the current line or the selected lines up  Shift + Ctrl + Up or down Shift + Ctrl + Down.

Saved commands

Commands used frequently (like Insert string, Sort, Reformat paragraph, Find and replace, etc.) can be configured once and saved in order to use them quickly in a variety of ways. Until you save your first command, the Saved commands menu is almost empty and the Manage Saved commands dialog box shows this message:

Saved commands are created when you configure commands and can be retrieved in the drop down list at the bottom of commands dialog box, for example in the Sort dialog box as illustrated above.

You can also launched Saved commands to apply them to the current content of the editor in various ways:

  • from the Saved commands menu (commands are grouped in submenus for each command type);
  • from a local hotkey that can be used when the QCE window is active;
  • from the Manage Saved commands dialog box describe below.

Thanks to QCEmessenger, you can also launched Saved commands from external applications (like Quick Access Popup) or scripts (.bat or Shell scripts, any programming language, etc.) to apply them instantly to the current content of the Clipboard. See Automating Saved commands, below.

Creating Saved commands

To create a Saved command, click the Save command checkbox in any command (as illustrated below in the Sort dialog box):

  • set the Saved command title or click the Suggest button to get a name automatically from the current options selected in the dialog box;
  • enable the Add to menu check box to insert this command in the Saved commands menu;
  • set a Hotkey that will apply the command to the current content of the editor when the QCE window is active;
  • click Save & Execute to save the command as it is executed or Save only to only save the command.
Add Saved commands to a menu and assign hotkeys

The Saved commands menu shows in submenus the saved commands for each type of commands.

Saved commands menu

Managing Saved commands

  • Saved commands can be managed globally in the Saved commands, Manage Saved commands dialog box.
  • The Saved commands list can be filtered by command types (Insert string, Reformat paragraph, Find and replace, etc.) and can be filtered by their name in the Filter text box.
  • To apply a command to the current content of the editor, select it in the list and click the Execute button or right-click to open the context menu and select Execute;
  • To open a command in its Edit dialog box, double-click it in the list, select it and click the Edit button or right-click to open the context menu and select Edit;
  • To rename command, check it in the list and click the Rename button;
  • To delete one Saved command, select it, right-click to open the context menu and select Delete (see below to delete multiple commands).
Managing Saved commands

To delete one or multiple commands, open the and Saved commands, Delete Saved commands dialog box, select the commands in the list and click the Delete button.

Deleting multiple Saved commands

To assign or change Saved commands hotkeys, open the Saved commands, Manage Saved commands Hotkeys dialog box showing the list of saved commands with hotkeys. To change or remove the hotkey associated to a saved command, double-click in the list or select it and click the Change button. Select the keyboard or mouse shortcut in the Change shortcut dialog box.

Automating Saved commands

QCE commands can be included in scripts or launched from external applications in order to automate all kinds of Clipboard transformations. This is done using the QCE companion executable QCEmessenger that sends commands to QCE using command line parameters. QCEmessenger can be called from the command line, batch file, any kind of script or application that can use a Run command to launch a Windows application.

You will find more info including the commands syntax in the Clipboard Scripting page.

Note: QCEmessenger commands can only work on Clipboard text format. When the Clipboard contains various formats (like HTML, RTF, etc.) only the text format is processed and made available in the Clipboard.

Commands menu

You will find under the Commands menu how you can quickly modify the content in the editor.

Sort

Quick sort

  • Select the Sort, Quick sort (alphabetically) menu or hit Ctrl + Q to sort the content alphabetically
  • The sort command is applied to the whole content of the editor or only to the selected text

Sort with options

  • Sort with options: Reverse order, Numeric values, Case sensitive, Case sensitive considering regional settings, Unique (remove duplicate lines), Randomly, Line length, From last backslash (to sort by filenames), From a given position or From delimiter (specify the delimiter character and its occurrence on each line).
  • Sort again (same options): sort the Editor’s lines with the options defined the last time the Sort with options command was used.
 

Insert string

  • In the Insert string dialog box (Ctrl + I), type the text or the characters to insert at the beginning, at the end or inside each line of the Editor’s content or the selected text.
  • You can click the links tab or new line to Insert these special characters or you can type yourself the backtick sequences `t (tab) or `n to (new line). Use double backticks `` to enter a backtick.
  • Insert text:
    • from the start of each line;
    • at the end of each line;
    • at a specific position;
    • or relative to the beginning or the end of specific characters (w/o an offset).
  • Tip: If you insert text at the end of each line of the selection, make sure you do not select the beginning of the line after the selection if you do not want to change this line (end your selection at the end of the last line).
 

Substring

  • In the Substring dialog box (Ctrl + B), specify if you want to Keep or Remove the selected text.
  • The command is applied to the whole content of the editor or only to the selected text.
  • Indicate the beginning and the end of the text to keep or remove on each line of the editor content
  • Keep or remove the text of each line From:
    • the start of each line
    • a given position
    • or the beginning or the end of a given string (w/o an offset).
  • Keep or remove the text up To:
    • the end of each line;
    • a given number of characters;
    • a given number of characters before the end of the line;
    • or the beginning or the end of a given string (w/o an offset).
 

Filter lines

  • In the Filter lines dialog box, select if you want to Delete or Keep the selected lines.
  • You can filter the lines in the editor based on various condition types.
  • With the Containing option, enter one or more criteria (one per line) and lines will be deleted or kept if:
    • All criteria are found on the line;
    • at least one criteria is found (Any);
    • none of the criteria are found (Not all);
    • any of the criteria is not found (Not any);
    • see the table Criteria “red” and “blue” below for examples.
  • You can also filter lines based on a regular expression.
  • When you choose Delete lines, you can select to remove lines that are Empty or Blank (containing only invisible characters spaces and tabs).
  • When you choose Keep lines, you can choose to retain lines that contain Only Numbers or Only Letters.
  • Check the Case sensitive option to restrict the selection.
 

For example, in the table below, with the criteria red and blue, the following lines will be selected (kept or deleted):

Criteria “red” and “blue”AllAnyNot allNot any
red hat and blue shirtyesyes
green hat and blue shirtyesyes
green hat and red shirtyesyes
yellow hat and green shirtyesyes

Filter characters

  • In the Filter characters dialog box, select if you want to Delete or Keep the selected characters.
  • The characters you enter in the List of characters to delete box will be removed or kept:
    • in all or selected text (Delete in All or Selected text);
    • when you choose Delete characters, you can select the Trim options Beginning and End of lines or only Beginning of lines or only End of lines.
  • Use the various links beside Insert to add invisible characters (tabs or new lines), all numbers or enter special characters based on their ASCII or Unicode number.
  • Check the Case sensitive option to restrict the selection.
 

Reformat paragraph

Use this command to format the text as you need it:

  • reformat the text in lines of a given length with configurable alignment and indentation, keeping paragraph separation;
  • merge all the text on one line.

In both cases, you can also clean up the punctuation following rules you define.

In this example, the following text will be reformatted in lines of a maximum of 79 characters with a tab indentation on the first line of each paragraph.

Lorem  ,ipsum dolor sit amet,   consectetuer adipiscing elit. curabitur dignissim
venenatis pede. quisque dui dui,    ultricies ut, facilisis non, pulvinar non,


    purus:

        duis quis arcu a purus volutpat iaculis. Morbi id dui in diam ornare
dictum.                                     Praesent consectetuer       vehicula ipsum. praesent tortor massa, congue et,ornare  in, posuere eget , pede.

Here is the result:

    Lorem, ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur
dignissim venenatis pede. Quisque dui dui, ultricies ut, facilisis non,
pulvinar non,

    Purus:

    Duis quis arcu a purus volutpat iaculis. Morbi id dui in diam ornare
dictum. Praesent consectetuer vehicula ipsum. Praesent tortor massa, congue
et, ornare in, posuere eget, pede.

Script

A Script allows to group Quick Clipboard Editor (QCE) commands and achieve powerful and efficient editing. A Script can include:

  • Change case commands (upper case, lower case, title case, etc.);
  • Saved commands to insert or remove string on each line, filter characters or lines, reformat paragraphs, etc. (see below);
  • Convert commands (HTML, Base64, etc.).

See Automating Saved commands, above for more information.

 

Find/Replace menu

Find, Find next and Find previous

  • Open the Find menu or hit Ctrl + F, enter the text to search and click the Execute button (or hit Enter).
  • You can insert invisible characters like tabs or new lines using the links or using the backtick sequences `t (tab) and `n new line. Use double backticks `` to search for a backtick.
  • Select the checkboxes if you want the search with the Match case option, search for Whole word or search Backwards. Take note that the Whole word and Backwards options cannot be used together.
  • The search starts at the current position or at the beginning of selected text, unless you select Always search from the top in Options, Editor window.
  • When the found text is highlighted, in the Continue? dialog box, click Yes to search for the next occurrence or No to interrupt the search.
  • If you launch a search with text is selected, the search ends at the end of the selection or at the end of the last selection if there are multiple selections.
  • If no text is selected, when reaching the end of text, search continues from the beginning of the text until all text has been searched. This looping can changed in Options, Editor Window.
  • After the search action is interrupted, you can use the Find next (F3) and Find previous (Shift + F3) shortcuts to search for more occurrences of the text searched.
 

Find and replace

  • Open the Find/Replace, Find and replace menu or hit Ctrl + H, enter the text to search, the replacement text and click the Execute button (or hit Enter).
  • You can use the invisible characters links or use the backtick sequences `t and `n to search for or replace with tabs or new lines. Use double backticks `` to enter a backtick.
  • Select if you want the search and replace with the option Match case or search for Whole word.
  • The search and replace starts at the current position and stops at the end of the text.
  • If text is selected (including multiple selections), the search covers only the selected text.
  • When the found text is highlighted, click Yes to replace, No to jump to the next occurrence, All to replace all remaining occurrences of the searched text or Cancel to interrupt the search and replace.
  • You can also select the Replace All checkbox to replace all occurrences following the current position in the editor.
  • Check the Regular expression checkbox to search and replace with various options (Ignore Case, Multiline or DotAll) and pattern replacements ($1, $2, etc.). See Regular expressions.
 

Change Case menu

The commands from the Change case menu are applied to the whole content of the editor or only to the selected text.

  • Lower case (Ctrl + Alt + L): all letters converted to lower case.
  • Upper case (Ctrl + Alt + U): all letters converted to capitals.
  • Title case (Ctrl + Alt + T): first letter of each word converted to capital.
  • Sentence case (Ctrl + Alt + S): first letter of each sentence or line converted to capital.
  • Toggle case (Ctrl + Alt + G): also called Reverse case, each letter converted to its opposite case.
  • SaRcAsM case (Ctrl + Alt + A): also called alternating caps.
  • Random (Ctrl + Alt + R): anything can happen.

Convert menu

The Convert menu include commands that change the content of the editor for various programming or technical needs. The first two commands are set using dialog boxes. The remaining commands in the various submenus are applied immediately to the whole content of the editor or only to the selected text. You can always use the Undo command if you do not get the expected result immediately.

 

Convert Number base

This command converts a number in the editor to and from Decimal, Hexadecimal, Octal and Binary bases. If the editor contains more than a number, select the number to convert before opening this command. Make sure the value to convert is selected and is a valid number. Negative numbers are supported but, at this time, number formatting (currency, separators, etc.) is not supported. Only raw numbers can be converted.

 

Convert color codes

This command converts color codes in the editor to and from RGB hexadecimal format (“FF8800”), long integer (“16746496”) and three decimal format (“255,136,0”) with configurable value separator for decimal. All color codes in the selected text are converted. To avoid unintentional long processing time, if no text is selected, the maximum length of text that can be processed is 1,000 characters (this maximum value ConvertColorsMaxSize=1000 can be changed in the ini file under the [Internal] section). If, inadvertently, the selected text includes some (rare) six letter words formed with letters A to F (for example decade, baffed, accede, facade), they could be converted to color codes!

 

Other convert commands

The remaining commands from the Convert menu are applied to the whole content of the editor or only to the selected text.

Note: Do not hesitate to report issue or make suggestions on the QCE forum.

  • URL (URI)
    • Encode for URL (URI) / Decode from URL encoding (URI):
      • encode and decode strings for compatibility with URLs (URI)
      • examples
        • "french/français" ↔ %22french%2Ffran%C3%A7ais%22
        • สวัสดี ↔ %E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%B5
  • XML
    • Encode for XML / Encode for XML with numeric values / Decode from XML
      • encode and decode strings for compatibility with XML format
      • & ↔ &
      • " ↔ "
      • ' ↔ '
      • < ↔ &lt;
      • > ↔ &gt;
      • example
        • Characters < > & ' and " must be encoded ↔ Characters &lt; &gt; &amp; &apos; and &quot; must be encoded
      • when using Encode for XML with numeric values, the characters you enter in the dialog box will be converted with their numeric values
      • example if you enter bc as characters to replace with numeric values:
        • abcde ↔ a&#98;&#99;de
  • HTML
    • Encode HTML entities and line breaks / Decode from HTML entities and line breaks
      • replace special characters with their HTML entities (like &eacute; for “é” or &amp; for “&”)
      • replace line breaks with “<br>“
      • and, on the other way, restore normal characters and line breaks from HTML codes
      • example:
        • Montréal,
          Québec
          ↔
          Montr&eacute;al,<br>Qu&eacute;bec
  • Hexadecimal
    • Encode Hexadecimal / Decode from Hexadecimal
      • convert text to Hexadecimal format and restore text from Hexadecimal codes
      • example
        • Hello! ↔ 48656C6C6F21
  • ASCII
    • List ASCII codes / Unlist ASCII codes
      • list ASCII codes of editor’s content (or the selected text) and restore original text without ASCII codes
      • example:
        Hello!
        ↔
        H 72
        e 101
        l 108
        l 108
        o 111
        ! 33
  • PHP
    • Encode for PHP 'single-quoted string' / Decode from PHP 'single-quoted string'
      • escape/unescape characters needing to be escaped for double quoted strings
      • \\ ↔ \
      • \' ↔ '
    • Encode for PHP "double-quoted string" / Decode from PHP "double-quoted string"
      • convert end of line and tab characters and, on the other way, restore normal characters from encoded string
      • escape/unescape characters needing to be escaped for double quoted strings
      • \r\n ↔ CR/LF
      • \t ↔ TAB
      • \\ ↔ \
      • \$ ↔ $
      • \" ↔ "
  • Autohotkey
    • Encode AutoHotkey special characters / Decode from AutoHotkey special characters
      • encode and decode strings for compatibility with AutoHotkey code
      • `n ↔ CR/LF
      • `t ↔ TAB
    • AutoHotkey %var% to Expression / Expression to %var%
      • convert AutoHotkey legacy syntax with variables like %var% to newer expression syntax with variable names and double-quotes
      • Example
        • Hello %YourName%! ↔ "Hello " . YourName . "!"
  • Binary
    • Encode the full Clipboard (all formats) to Base64 text
    • Decode Base64 text in editor and load it to Clipboard
    • Encode image in Clipboard to Base64 text
    • Decode Base64 text in editor and load image to Clipboard
    • Currently Base64 strings are encoded in lines of 64 characters

Options menu

The Options dialog box is divided in five sections: Launch, Hotkeys, Editor Window, Fonts and colors, Clipboard History and Various. The options of each section are described below.

In the Options menu you can also:

  • Toggle the Keep the editor open after Paste option. The default setting for this option is set in the Editor Window section .
  • Toggle the Copy to Append to the editor option. The default setting for this option is also set in the Editor Window section. It allows to collect various pieces of text snippets in the editor with a configurable text separator. The default separator “–” can be configured in the Various section.
  • Edit QuickClipboardEditor.ini file to edit other options.
  • Open Settings Folder open the QCE directory where its setting and the history database are saved (see Settings folder and file below).
 

In the Launch section:

  • select if you wish Launch QCE at startup, Open the “Editor window” at startup, Open the “History Search” window at Startup, Display the Startup Tray Tip or Check for QCE update at startup;
  • set the Settings file backup folder and the Temporary Folder.
 
  • In the Hotkeys section, select the mouse or keyboard hotkeys to:
    • Open the QCE Editor window Mouse button (default Ctrl + Middle Mouse button)
    • Open the QCE Editor window Keyboard shortcut (default Shift + Win + V)
    • Paste from QCE Editor shortcut (default Ctrl + Win + V) to paste the content of the editor at the caret position of the active application;
    • Copy text and open the QCE editor (default Ctrl + Win + C) to copy the selected text in the active application and open the QCE editor with this text;
    • Open the Clipboard History Quick Paste (default Ctrl + `, Shift + Ctrl + ` and Win + Ctrl + `) used in the Quick Paste cycling.
 

In the Editor Window section:

  • Select if you wish to Remember the window position at startup.
  • Select the theme displayed: Light, Dark or following Windows setting.
  • Set Startup Default values for options: Fixed width font, Font size, Always on top, Word wrap, See invisible characters, Keep the editor open after Paste and Copy to Append to the editor. The settings can be changed during a session in the tool bar or in the Options menu.
  • On the right side, select search options: Always search from top and At the end, continue to search from the top of the text.
  • Set Tabs and indentation: Tabs width and editing options Show indentation guides, Auto-indentation and Fill tabs with spaces.
  • Finally, in the Various section, select if you with to Display line numbers on the left side of the editor, Highlight active line, Allow multiple selection and Show selected character ASCII hexa code in the status bar (instead of default decimal code).
 

In the Fonts and colors section:

  • Select the Fonts for Fixed width and Proportional fonts (you choose what font to display in the tool bar).
  • Using the various Text color and Background buttons, select the colors for the Editor, the Line Numbers column and the Window Background.

Additional color settings can be configured in the QCE ini file (Options, Edit QuickClipboardEditor.ini) under the section [FontsColors] to change default colors for caret, selections and indentations:

  • color of the vertical line at the editor’s insertion point: LightCaret= and DarkCaret=
  • color of the selected text: LightSelectionForeground= and LightSelectionBackground= or DarkSelectionForeground= and DarkSelectionBackground=
  • color of the indentation guidelines: LightIndentationForeground= and LightIndentationBackground= or DarkIndentationForeground= and DarkIndentationBackground=
  • background color of the History Search/Quick Paste for dark theme: DarkBackgroundHistorySearch=
 

In the Clipboard History section, configure the History database, History menus and History Search and Quick Paste.

  • Set the Database maximum size (in MB) (oldest clips are delete when this size is exceeded); the default is 100 megs – make it larger (like 500 megs) if you plan to often save images to the Clipboard.
  • Set the Clip maximum size (in MB) saved to the History (larger clips are ignored); the default is 5 megs – make it larger (like 100 megs) if you plan to save large images to the Clipboard.
  • Set the Clipboard sync delay (ms) (consecutive Clipboard changes under the specified delay are ignored, default 500 milliseconds).
  • Click the Flush History database to delete all clips saved in the history; set the Skip clip deletion confirmation if desired.
  • Set how the History Menus are displayed (width, number of items and icon size).
  • Set how History Search and Quick Paste lists are displayed (font size, max number of rows in query results, icons size and remember last window position.
  • Specify if you want to exclude applications from the history database with the History Exclusions/Inclusions list. For example, exclude application that could save confidential information to the Clipboard. If you select Include only, only clips from the listed applications will be saved. Use the Get window info button to identify the applications to exclude or include.
 

In the Various section:

  • Set the maximum waiting time when the Clipboard is busy.
  • Configure the Number of Saved commands in lists and the Custom file encoding codepage.
  • Enter the text used for Copy to append separator and Multiple clips edit or paste separator.
  • Specify where command dialog boxes will appear: over the Center of the editor, on its Right or Left side of the editor (when the editor window is maximized, dialog boxes are always displayed centered over it).
 

Settings folder and file

Quick Clipboard Editor settings are stored in the file QuickClipboardEditor.ini. Select Options, Edit QuickClipboardEditor.ini to open this file. The settings file database is saved in the QCE Settings folder. You can open this folder from the menu bar under the Options, Open Settings Folder or from the Tray menu.

Optimizing QCE for Your System

When saving Clipboard clips to the database and when pasting text, images or rich text contents to application, Quick Clipboard Editor introduces several execution delays in order to increase its reliability. Saving and pasting clips to applications involve interactions between QCE, AutoHotkey (the QCE runtime engine), Windows and various types of applications. From experience during development, several delays have proven to be essential to ensure the success of the various operations. These delays become more visible when you use the History Search/Quick Paste window to paste multiple clips at once.

These delays are likely longer than necessary. If your high-performance system is responding quickly to QCE commands, you can probably reduce delays durations. On the other hand, on slower systems, you might need to increase the delays. Edit the quickclipboardeditor.ini file to change these delays. See: Optimizing QCE for Your System.

Help menu

  • Get Help (on this page), Visit Quick Clipboard Editor website, Show QCE Welcome window, show Shortcuts Help (see below), Make a donation, Check for update and read About Quick Clipboard Editor.
  • Hit F1 to show the Shortcuts Help and see the two tabs for Text Editing hotkeys and QCE commands hotkeys.
 

The keyboard shortcuts available in QCE are listed under the two tabs of the Editor Shortcuts Help: Text Editing and QCE commands.