Clippy is handy when:

• You need to temporarily save the clipboard contents somewhere, but you don’t want to create a file.
• You are working on two things at once and you need more than one clipboard.
• You see an error message on one computer and you want to paste the text into an application or e-mail message on another computer at your desk.
• You want to send text from one machine to another, but both machines don’t have e-mail.
• You want to turn your simple cut-and-paste editor into a poor man’s Instant Messenger.

Download program including source: clippy.jar.

To run Clippy, open a command window (On Windows, use Start->Programs->MS-DOS Prompt or Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt), and enter the following commands:

C:\Windows\> cd directory where you downloaded the JAR file
directory> java -jar Clippy.jar

To make it easy to use, there is only one main dialog. The Clippy menus can use the current clipboard, the contents of one of the previously used clipboard buffers, or a file on your computer. This is indicated by a radio button and a selectable list of buffers and files.

You may view the currently selected contents with the View menu off the second menu. The title of the second menu changes from Clipboard, Buffer, and File depending on the the radio button selected.

When you or someone else sends clipboard text to your machine, it will appear at the top of the available "Buffer:" list. It will stay in the available list until you delete the buffer or end the program. As a precaution, incoming text does not get copied directly to the clipboard because the computer’s clipboard may be in use.

The Clipboard | Copy to Buffer menu copies the contents of the current clipboard to a new entry in the drop down list.

The Clipboard | Copy to File... menu copies the contents of the current clipboard to a file. A file save dialog will appear.

Only text files can be portably copied from the clipboard to a buffer or file. If the clipboard does not contain text, these menu items are disabled.

The Copy to Clipboard menu off the Buffer or File menu can set the clipboard from the selected source. Afterward, the clipboard can be used by other applications. If a file being copied to the clipboard does not contain text, garbage may result on the clipboard.

There is no limit to the number of buffers that Clippy can accept nor is there a limit to the size of the buffers. As a consequence, you may wish to delete extraneous buffers to save memory. To delete buffers you will not be using later, select the desired buffer in the "Buffer:" field then select the Buffer | Delete menu. The File | Delete menu deletes the selected file.

If you wish to send clipboard contents to an e-mail address, in addition to being able to send to another clippy client, you must specify the e-mail parameters. This dialog is displayed when you select File | Options.... These parameters are saved for the next time your run Clippy.