When installed and running, Ditto lets you copy something to the Clipboard and store it in its own database to make that clip retrievable at a later time. Ditto is, in effect, an extension to the standard facilities of Windows' own clipboard because in Ditto each new capture doesn't over-write the previous one as it does in Windows' Clipboard. This little program allows you to save any type of information that can be put into the clipboard, including text, images, html, and custom formats.
Ditto presents a very basic user interface. When you first install it, it runs with no clips on the board so of course it looks rather bare. But as you copy clips (select and use Ctrl/C as usual) the board fills up steadily until you reach the maximum number of clips you have set in the Options menu, the default being 500 items.
When you want to paste an item you just locate the cursor in your application, find the phrase you want in the clips list, and double click it. Or simply double clicking pastes the last item you copied to Ditto.
Multi-purpose
You can paste clips into any application that can accept copy/paste entries, and to help you identify clips, there are thumbnail images of non-text clips displayed in the Ditto Clipboard. Of course text captures show as text, and it has to be admitted that selection of these is less error-prone than that of non-text items. Nevertheless, the thumbnails are generally adequate for identification purposes provided you don't have a lot of them, all with similar outlines such as spreadsheet clips.
You can also drag-and-drop items from the Ditto board. That's a neat way of not only selecting the correct item, but it lets you drop in the clip precisely where you want it in the receiving document. You have the clipboard and the receiving document open alongside each other to facilitate this move. Normally, when you click away from the Ditto window, it disappears and so you have to open it again when you want to use it, but there's an option to arrange for 'Always on Top' location. If the Ditto Clipboard itself becomes intrusive, you can minimise it to a narrow vertical band that can be located at the edge of the screen by simply clicking on the double right arrow symbol at the lower right of the board.
Entering a keyword into the search box at the bottom of the Ditto Clipboard you can quickly locate specific items from the board. Ditto filters the board contents so show only such items, making it easier to identify the one you want.
Groups
Additionally, you can arrange for clips to be moved to Groups. That reduces the number of clips to search if you have many that are used routinely. These Group folders are in the normal listing, and when you want to open one and use it's clips, just double-click on it to open it.
Usefully, when you copy a text clip to Ditto you can edit that entry. There's nothing more annoying than to have a clip you regularly use that has a typo in it and you have to correct it all the time after pasting. Editing corrects that. What's more, you can actually use the Editor in Ditto to write your own clips for later pasting. It includes basic word processing facilities, and you can pop the saved item into a Group when you're ready to.
A more comprehensive list of standard features of this program are shown in the graphic right.:
Ditto's Options menu, accessible by right clicking the program's icon, offers a wide range of user choices. While the defaults will be found to work just fine by most users, some will want to avail themselves of these extras, and it's one of the first things a new user will investigate.
For example, while the default setting is for the most recent clip to be at the top of the board listing, some will prefer it to be at the bottom, so that's where it can be moved. Similarly, the option to prompt you when deleting clips can be switched off. Most users will want to keep the list of clips on the board to a minimum by regularly emptying the board, or at least making selected deletions - that makes it quicker to locate the precise clips you want to paste to the new location - but the prompt to give Ditto the go-ahead can slow progress down a tad. On the other hand it's annoying to find the one you just thoughtlessly deleted is the one you actually wanted to use. That moment's reflection can save the day for you.
Sounds can be switched on to confirm copy or paste, and you can elect to check for Ditto updates automatically if you want to, or you can check manually from the Options menu. Take a look around the list of options and we think you'll find that Ditto covers most bases.
This writer has, since the days when he installed Windows Vista, used Jan Zeman's Clipboard Manager gadget to substitute for Windows' Clipboard. It worked pretty well, but it had one flaw in that if you deleted all but a single clip, which you'd think was the one you really intended to leave in place, then the only clip you could actually paste was the last one you just deleted, and that was annoying.
SourceForge's Ditto Clipboard Manager is a better, more developed option, and of course it doesn't use the Gadget resources, though we have to admit that it can be somewhat intrusive on smaller displays when you regularly find yourself minimising it to the slim vertical bar. However, Ditto can be made less intrusive as described, it's innards are far more accessible, it can be customised in many more ways. It also remains free, an important point for the tight-fisted, broke, or recession-beset PC user.
In conclusion
There's really no need to settle for Windows' own very basic Clipboard Manager; there's so little to manage about it that for the average PC user it's very little use beyond copying and pasting single items. That's not the way the PC world works, and we're surprised that Microsoft Corp hasn't jumped on the multi-clip bandwagon before now. Ditto makes a leap forward in managing this sort of thing, and even the typical PC user will value it. More advanced users, such as legal offices of one sort or another, and many commercial organisations, where standard phrases are all the thing, will thank their lucky stars they discovered it and they don't have to repeatedly type all those phrases of standard jargon.
