Pilotmoon Logo

Mailing list — for news about Pilotmoon apps.

PopClip Home · User Guide · Extensions

PopClip User Guide

When you select text in any app, PopClip appears with these actions.

Cut, Copy and Paste

Just like usual clipboard actions on your Mac, as if you had pressed ⌘X, ⌘C or ⌘V.

Search

Perform web search for the selected text, in a new browser tab. See also: Change the Search Engine

Open Link

Open the selected web address(es), in a new browser tab. Try it out: apple.com/mac, boingboing.net

Use Email Address

Compose a new email to the selected address(es). Try it out: support@pilotmoon.com

Reveal in Finder

Reveal the selected file path in Finder. (Exact selection is necessary.) Try it out: ~/Documents/

Dictionary

Look up the word in the built-in Dictionary app. See also: Adding Dictionaries

Spelling

Replace the selected word with the suggested spelling. See also: Set the Spelling Language / Turn Off Spelling

More...

Many more actions are available as extensions.
Extend PopClip with more actions.

Installing Extensions

You can add many more actions to PopClip using extensions. For example:

See the PopClip Extensions page for all the details.

After copying, click in a text field to paste.

When does Paste appear?

Paste appears when you click editable text immediately after pressing Copy or Cut. To make Paste appear at other times (without selecting text), either hold down the mouse button for about half a second, or click twice in the same place.

Paste and Match Style / Paste Without Formatting

Hold down the shift (⇧) key when you click Paste, to paste without formatting. You can also hold shift when you click Copy (and Cut), to copy without formatting.

Extra tip: You can also add a dedicated Paste and Match Style button using an extension.

Search for '***' to set the search engine.

You can change the search engine to anything you like. Here's how:

  1. Search for *** in your chosen search engine.
  2. Select the URL of the results page.
  3. Click the Set Search Engine option which appears in PopClip.

Here are some suggestions:

http://www.google.com/search?q=*** (default)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=isch&q=*** (image search)
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=***
http://www.bing.com/search?q=***
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=***
http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=***
http://yandex.ru/yandsearch?text=***
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=***
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=***

Extra tip: You can set a second search engine by holding shift (⇧) when you click Set Search Engine. Then hold shift when you click the Search button in PopClip to activate the alternate search.

Set the Spelling Language / Turn Off Spelling

You can choose the spelling language in PopClip's settings. To turn off spelling suggestions completely, set the language to "None".

Opening URLs and Email Addresses

If you select text containing a web link or email address (such as http://pilotmoon.com or apple.fr/mac), you can click the Open Link button in PopClip to open the link in a new browser tab. It is not necessary to select the link exactly, and if you select several links, PopClip will open all of them.

If you hold shift when you click Open Link, PopClip will copy the links to the clipboard as a list.

Add third party dictionaries for more languages.

Adding Dictionaries

PopClip uses the built-in Dictionary app to look up words, and OS X supports only English and Japanese. However, some third party dictionaries are available:

Activating PopClip from the Keyboard

You can activate PopClip using the following AppleScript:

tell application "PopClip" to appear

(You can download this as an AppleScript file here: PopClipAppear.applescript.)

If you want to trigger PopClip from the keyboard, you can bind the script to a hotkey using an Automator service (see this Automator+PopClip guide by George Coghill) or your favorite launcher app (for example FastScripts, Alfred, LaunchBar or Quicksilver)

Once activated from the AppleScript, you can select PopClip actions using the ←, → and space keys.