Mac Treat #23: Text Clipping
Here’s an old “trick” that many new Mac users are unaware of. This is an extremely fast and easy way to “grab” a chunk of text from any almost application (Safari, Firefox, Word, Mail, etc) and drop it onto your desktop as a “clipping.” The text clipping can later be opened and read, or pasted into any word processor. This is handy for grabbing a quote off the internet, for example.
To do this, all you have to do is highlight the text you wish to “clip” by dragging your mouse over it, then click on this highlighted text and (without letting go), drag it to the desktop. Now, on the desktop, you’ll have a new file containing the text clipping. You can use this text as you’d use any other text file.
Note that you can also drag this text directly into the word processor of your choice, or even into Mail.
Once they get used to it, this tends to be a shortcut that people use on a daily basis. Give it a try!