If you do a lot of copying and pasting on your Windows PC, a clipboard manager is sure to come in handy for you. With a free clipboard manager like Shapeshifter, you can save more than just the last item that you’ve copied to your clipboard. Plus, it’s sure to give you a productivity boost since you’ll spend less time copying the same things over and over again. Shapeshifter is a user-friendly clipboard manager that integrates nicely into Windows 8. Best of all, you won’t have to learn anything new; Shapeshifter works with Windows’s existing copy and paste keyboard shortcuts (CTRL+C and CTRL+V). As you’ll soon learn, Shapeshifter is essentially an extension to the Windows clipboard. Here’s how to manage your clipboard history in Windows 8 using Shapeshifter.
Getting Started
- Download Shapeshifter for free; It will work in Windows 8, Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
- Once you install the program, it will automatically open on your computer and you’ll need to choose the “interaction mode” that best suits you.
- As far as interaction modes, you can choose between mixed mode, integrated mode, or external mode.
Mixed mode – gives you the best of both worlds and combines integrated mode and external mode. Integrated mode – allows you to paste and manage your clipboard items using CTRL+V. External mode – allows you to manage items by clicking the Shapeshifter icon in the taskbar.
- Once you select your desired mode, the Settings window will pop-up so that you can customize Shapeshifter as needed. You can change the language, colors, startup settings, and interaction settings. Once you close the settings window, you can access it whenever you’d like by right clicking on Shapeshifter’s icon in the notifications area.
Copying and Pasting Content
Now you can work on your computer as you usually would. Just to see how Shapeshifter works, you’ll probably want to copy at least two items in a row – you can copy text and images.
After you’ve copied two or more items, try pasting them into a textarea or textbox by using the keyboard shortcut. Instead of simply pressing CTRL+V to paste an item, hold down the CTRL+V combo to bring up your clipboard contents. Don’t let go of the keys until you’re on the item that you want to paste.
You can then use the arrows on your keyboard to cycle through the items and select the item that you want to paste.
If you’re using Windows 7 or Windows 8, you can also use Shapeshifter’s icon in the taskbar to look through, select, and remove items from your clipboard history. Just click on the item to paste it, and click on the “x” in the top right corner of an item to remove it from your clipboard history. That’s it. Now you won’t lose your copied content anymore, instead it will be saved using Shapeshifter. It’s definitely a more efficient way of managing your clipboard history.
