There’s a simple way to drill into the Windows or Mac clipboard to see what’s saved and how it’s saved.
The clipboard is a lot more complicated than most people think. Happily, most of the time the complications don’t matter to us mere humans.
Copying text from, say, Word might seem simple but each time you do, the clipboard saves three versions of the content. Plain text, RTF (Rich Text) and HTML. What’s put into the clipboard depends on the app being copied from and what the clipboard will accept.
Clipboard Inspector is an online tool that lets you see the details of what’s saved in the clipboard. That’s usually but not always what you expect.
It works for Windows and Mac.
Paste the clipboard into the ‘paste in here’ box. First is a complete and long display of the content in each of the formats available. Below is a summary of the items or formats available and whether it’s a file or not.
It’s a useful tool if you’re trying to isolate a copy/paste problem or just curious. Worth a ‘just in case’ bookmark against future need.
We used this tool because of a problem copying text from Word which would only paste in plain text. Was it a problem in Word, the clipboard or the receiving app? In this case, Clipboard Extender showed that no HTML version was present which helped isolate the problem.