Copy multiple items in Safari on the iPhone or iPod touch
Jul 15, '09 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: Anonymous
On my iMac I use a multi-clipboard tool like Jumpcut. Copying multiple items is essential for writing on the Web, especially on hand-held devices where it's hard to switch between applications. I don't want to jailbreak my iPhone, so I'm stuck without multi-clipboard abilities for the moment. Here are some options I came up with for copying multiple blocks of text in Safari.
- Copy the entire article and edit it down after you paste. This is fine, but the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) is still another trip to the clipboard.
- Copy each bit to a Note. As well as it works, the Notes app has to launch each time you switch back to it. If you're pulling many clippings, this can take a bit of time.
- Stack URIs and text in Safari's address bar. Believe it or not you can paste a lot of text into the address bar, but it can't deal with paragraph breaks. So if all you want is a sentence or two, or URIs from several pages, copy the text, tap on the iPhone's status bar, tap the web address, put the cursor at the end of the address, and paste. Next, select all and copy again. Slice it up when you paste it in its final destination.
- If you want a couple of paragraphs, you'll need a better pasteboard to assemble your selections. One very Web 2.0 solution is the comment box. You can copy as many interesting items into a comment text box as you can think to copy. You can even format it before selecting all and copying again. To navigate to a comment box at the end of a page, tap on any exposed text box on the web page, then tap the Previous or Next buttons above the iPhone keyboard until you reach the comment box.
- If there are no exposed input boxes, you want a pasteboard that's in easy reach inside Safari. If you're writing on WordPress.com, you have the option of saving things in a Draft. Another option is to use iPasteboard, a simple webpage that stores whatever you paste onto it as a cookie.
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Mac OS X Hints
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