Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Could you imagine going through a day of using your computer without being able to copy and paste stuff? I know, it sounds crazy! Being able to copy and paste saves me unbelievable amounts of time every day, and I have a huge appreciation for the copy/paste keyboard shortcuts.

With the help of some Firefox extensions we’re going to demonstrate how something as simple as copying and pasting can be taken to a new level! I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two extensions that can make you more productive. Here are our top 10 Firefox extensions for copying and pasting:

1. CoLT (Homepage)
   Do you find yourself copying and pasting hyperlinks into forums or sites that require specially formatted links? This extension will take care of that problem by copying the selected link into any format that you designate, and if it doesn’t include what you need out-of-the-box you can always add your own.
   
2. Paste and Go (Homepage)
   Imagine for a minute that you have copied some text or a URL from within your browser. What do you plan on doing with it now? Maybe you’ll paste the URL into the Address Bar to open it up, or maybe you’ll paste the text into the search box to pull up the search results? Paste and Go simplifies the process of doing either task with a simple context menu entry or buttons that you can add to the toolbar. With it you’ll be able to paste a URL and go to it, or paste some text and perform a search all with a single click!
   
3. PasteIP (Homepage)
   How often do you go hunting around for your current IP address? Let Firefox do the work for you with this simple extension. Whenever you decide that you want to insert your IP address just right-click in the text field and select the “Paste IP Address” option.
   
4. Copy All URL’s (Homepage)
   With this extension you’re able to copy all of your open tabs to the clipboard, and then paste them into a new window. It also has some more advanced options that make sharing your open tabs with other people a little more convenient. Take a look at the options to see the different ways that you can format the output.
   
5. Table2Clipboard (Homepage)
   If you’ve ever tried to copy and paste a table from the browser into Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc you may have noticed that things do not copy over as well as they should. This extension aims to ease the tedious burden of reformatting an HTML table to look right in a desktop application such as Excel. Just highlight the cells that you want to copy, and in the context menu there is a new “Copy table elements” option that will take care of the formatting for you. Then go ahead and paste them into the application just as you normally would.
   
6. Extended Copy Menu (Homepage)
   You’re probably familiar with copying content from Firefox and pasting it into a word processor. All of the formatting and everything is typically carried over, but with this extension you’ll be able to specify whether you want the text copied as “plain text.” Not only that but you’ll also be able to grab the underlying HTML using the “Copy as HTML” option in the context menu:
   
7. Lorem2Clipboard (Homepage)
   You can never get enough Lorem Ipsum text, can you? This extension will let you quickly copy a few paragraphs of Lorem Ipsum text to the clipboard so that you can use it in any way you desire. All you have to do is click the button located in the Status Bar to have it automatically copied to the clipboard:
   
8. Auto Copy (Homepage)
   This is an extremely simple extension that serves a valuable purpose for a lot of people. The Auto Copy extension, as the name implies, will take any text that you highlight and copy it to the clipboard automatically. No right clicks and no keyboard shortcuts… it’s automatic baby!
9. Copy Links (Homepage)
   I’m sure it’s happened to you before where you’ve wanted to copy several different hyperlinks that appear in a body of text. With Copy Links you can actually do that. Just select a body of text and hit up the respective option in the context menu.
   
10. Copy/Paste Form (Homepage)
    Note: This is an experimental add-on and will require that you login before being able to install it.

    Have you ever gotten burned out of filling in the same form one after another? Copy/Paste Form will let you copy every field from a given form, and paste it directly into another form! Or even better… save the form and paste the content back in later on. It supports text fields, passwords, selections, checkboxes, and radio buttons.
    

Now I know that not every one of those extensions will apply to you, but hopefully there are a few that sound like they could be helpful. Copying and pasting content has always been about being more productive, and many of these extensions assist in that area. Let us know in the comments how you make the most of copying and pasting.

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