ClipMate version 4.01 
by Susan Ives, Alamo PC

 If you're on the Internet, you can read my original review on the Alamo PC Home Page. To recap, the Windows clipboard only holds one item at a time. ClipMate stores an infinite number of items. Using Clipmate, I can copy ten, twenty or a thousand items onto my clipboard and every one is at my fingertips if I need it again. This is such an obvious improvement that I can't figure out why the cabbageheads who designed the Windows clipboard didn't do it this way in the first place. I've demonstrated this program in many of my classes. Everyone who's seen it wants it and wants it NOW. 

 The 4.01 version is a significant upgrade. 

• The interface is prettier and easier to navigate. In Windows 95, you can shove ClipMate down into the toolbar in the lower right corner of your screen, which is handy and unobtrusive. In the Win 95 version that I'm using now, each clip is tagged with a format icon, telling me whether it's ASCII, Rich Text, a bitmapped graphic or an OLE. Even when ClipMate is active it only occupies a tiny corner of my laptop screen and although it holds hundreds of clips it hardly affects my system resources.

 

 

• Older versions of ClipMate maintain only two categories of clips: temporary and semi- permanent. Version 4.01 lets you establish an infinite number of clip collections that you can manage any way you want. I have a collection that I use in desktop publishing that stores my company logo, the copyright symbol, em and en dashes, curly quotes and a few wingdings. Another standing collection contains standard blurbs that I use in form letters and press releases. I don't ever purge these collections. To keep them from filling up with useless scraps, I use ClipMate's "garbage avoidance," which sends new clips to less tightly-managed areas. At the other end of the spectrum, I am continually gathering World Wide Web addresses from newsgroups, e-mail and other Web pages. This collection is flushed every ten days. Each collection has its own icon in an unobtrusive scroll bar.

 

 

• A new feature in version 4.01 is carriage return removal. I process a lot of ASCII documents that have hard breaks inserted at the end of every line. Removing these manually is brain-numbing work. ClipMate does it for me. This feature alone is worth the cost of the program.

 

 

• There are cool tips on how to use ClipMate's features. For example, you can store a facsimile signature to insert into your FAX documents: ClipMate lets you do it easily, and shows you how. You can use your Print Scrn key to make screen captures. ClipMate will store them for you and if you print them from ClipMate they will automatically resize to fill a page instead of printing at their actual postage stamp size. The developers of ClipMate use the power paste utility to transfer their online order forms into their Excel database effortlessly. Clip collections can even be shared among computers, a great way to distribute data such as e-mail addresses or phone numbers.
ClipMate is available in Windows 95 and 3.1 versions. It's about a 500 kb download and expands to about twice that size. Installation is straightforward. The help file is one of the best I've seen, and you have the option to activate tips of the day as a painless way of learning the subtleties of the program. It costs $25 to register or $10 to upgrade an older version. It will run for 30 days or 30 uses, after which you will get nag screens and some of the advanced features will be disabled. 

ClipMate is available on the Internet at http://www.thornsoft.com. I've also put a copy on the Alamo PC BBS. You can get to them directly by writing to Thornton Software Solutions, 155 Southridge Dr., Rochester, NY 14626, (716) 227-6505. Get this program and send the guys their money. I want to make sure they have tons of cash so they will keep making this great program even better. 

 Susan Ives, once an advertising copywriter and army public affairs officer, is now the owner of Square 1 Internet Training and Consulting, the co-chair of the Internet SIGs and Webmaster for the Alamo PC Home Page.