Paste Plain Text
August 29 2007 09:58:43 AM
Add/Read Comments [35]
Have you ever used the menu command Edit >> Paste Special... >> Text? If so, here is a neat Lotus Notes add-on which will remove all rich text formatting of the clipboard contents (if they're HTML or Rich Text or a Spreadsheet selection) and paste it into your Notes client as just plain text. Now instead of multiple steps using the menu options, you can simply use the keystrokes CTRL+SHIFT+Insert, or CTRL+SHIFT+V.
*If you don't know what I am talking about, then I guess I should do a separate blog entry on what Paste Special - Text does. :-)
NOTE:
- This is completely unsupported by IBM. No really, don't call.
- This DLL is only for Windows.
- Once you have unformatted the clipboard contents with this, the rich text properties are gone. So even if you use the standard CTRL+V afterwards, only plain text will be pasted. You'll have to copy the rich text to the clipboard again if you need the full formatting.
Install instructions:
1) Copy the accelerator.dll file to your notes.exe directory.
Accelerator.dll
2) Add the following line to your notes.ini file:
extmgr_addins=accelerator.dll
3) Restart your notes client.
*If you don't know what I am talking about, then I guess I should do a separate blog entry on what Paste Special - Text does. :-)
NOTE:
- This is completely unsupported by IBM. No really, don't call.
- This DLL is only for Windows.
- Once you have unformatted the clipboard contents with this, the rich text properties are gone. So even if you use the standard CTRL+V afterwards, only plain text will be pasted. You'll have to copy the rich text to the clipboard again if you need the full formatting.
Install instructions:
1) Copy the accelerator.dll file to your notes.exe directory.
Accelerator.dll
2) Add the following line to your notes.ini file:
extmgr_addins=accelerator.dll
3) Restart your notes client.
Alan - presumably this dll came from some IBM/Lotus skunkworks? I'd love to be able to deploy it but it being unsupported might prove a bit tricky to justify! It would also be nice if Notes had some kind of Add-Ons interface like Firefox without mucking about in ini files.
Hi Mark. I am in no way endorsing that you roll it out across your company. If it helps you great, that is what I am here for. If it causes problems, it wasn't me! ;-)
How great! I'm constantly doing Paste Special - Plain Text and it always seemed there should be a shortcut.
One gotcha -- folks may already have an "extmgr_addins=" line in notes.ini. Just add ",accelerator.dll" to the end of whatever is already there.
David Schaffer - Thanks for the gotcha warning. That got me, and I thought I would end up really disappointed, until I read your comment and that fixed things right up!
Alan - Really, please tell us who wrote this so we know who to thank! This is awesome. I just tested it out, and it's going to make a LOT of jobs easier.
Hey, is this supported with Notes 7 or just with 8 ?
It is NOT SUPPORTED in any version... but yes it works with 7.
Awesome!
Wonderful. Been trying to write a Macro to pass formatted text through Notepad to achieve same thing, now I don't have to. Many thanks
Steve
Thanks. I have been waiting for this for a long time...
Saar
thanks..
THANKS!
Nifty!
Can we have it built-in to the client please?
and for Christmas I'd like a pony and a plane and a motorbike. Thanks!
LOL Phil. Unfortunately IBM's lawyers won't let Lotus endorse any such ponies, as we don't want to offend any other animals.
Does this work with 6.5.4? It hasn't made any difference in my client - which is annoying as I hate having to constantly use 'paste special'.
Dave, I'm not sure, but I think it should work. Have you set up everything as outlined, and restarted Notes?
An upgrade from 7.02 to 8 removed the functionality but was able install it in 8 w/o problem. The entry in notes.ini had disappeared.
Steve
I have found that (very sadly) this add-in causing some issues. One of the things it does is block some sort of threading to Windows dialogues. An example is that while using it and trying to use the Sametime Print Capture tool with Notes running and the add-in enabled the save dialogue will hang. Exiting Notes (or running without the add-in) solves the issue. And it is not just the Sametime Print Capture tool... I have found several others too. Any chance of a fix?
Hi Brett, I can mention it to the developer who created it... but this is 100% unsupported, so I don't know if/when he/she could get around to it.
Unfortunately doesn't work with 6.0.3
works absolutlely perfectly. lotus notes 8.51.
thank you!
It seems our 8.5.1 installation has no notes.ini file? I searched the entire HD and found older versions. There was one dated 2/11/2010 in /Windows but it was nearly empty so am guessing it was only used for the upgrade that happened about then? Tried it anyway and it didn't work. Also searched contents for extmgr_addins with no luck. Poked around in the registry some but didn't really know what to look for there. Where is our installation hding this? Thanks, Greg.
Never mind about the location of notes.ini file. I found it. For some reason windows search would not find it unless I was already in that folder. Go figure. Sorry to have bothered you.
Anyone tried this with Notes 8.5.1 on Windows 7? Tried it on multiple Win7 computers and it seems to cause Explorer.exe to hang. Closing Notes releases Explorer.exe, and/or removing the line in the .ini file confirms that it was causing it..
Addition to my previous comments Alan: in no way was I trying to bash the product. I've completely been spoiled by this functionality in my day to day work and would love to figure it out for Win7. Any help you can give is much appreciated.
Hi Tim. Sorry the code no longer seems to work. As I'm no longer at IBM, I don't have access to find out if there is a newer code.
Understood. Thanks for the reply Alan.
Thanks for this, you've restored some of my sanity. The real question is why do so many other programs do this so seamlessly? Oh ya it's Lotus Notes where the motto must be "We not happy until your NOT happy!!
Does any has any idea how to do this in LN 8.5.2 on Win7?
When we paste Cyrillic or Czech characters from Word 2010 to LN it changes that to unreadable text. Is there any option how to set "Paste as plain text" as default paste action?
Awesome! Thanks, this is a lifesaver!
you mind sharing the source-code for this? (no prob if you don't, I just have difficulty trusting binaries :-)
As for Tim M (see comments above), I am also finding that this DLL is creating problems under Windows 7 (using Notes 8.5.1).
I resolved it by rebooting & removing the DLL from my Notes folder (and from notes.ini). The issue occurs when using Alt-Tab to switch between programs (the popup never disappears).
Too bad! This was working fine for me in WinXP / Notes 8.5.1.
seems to work fine for me with Windows 7 (64Bit) and the latest Lotus Notes 8.5.4 beta (CD2); no problems encountered so far!
This issue caused me real headaches for months after moving to Win 7 64bit. The plugin definitely causes Explorer, command prompts and other parts of Windows to hang, as described by Tim M.
@Brett v G: Reading this, I remember I once were also experiencing similar issues with Sametime Print Capture (still under Windows XP 32bit). I never thought that this plugin could be the cause.
Works in Win7 64bit like a charm...
copy file *.dll into C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\Lotus
modify file notes.ini located at... C:\Users\"youruseraccount"\AppData\Local\Lotus\Notes\Data
add extmgr_addins=accelerator.dll on the bottom of this file.
restart LNotes
I experience the same issue as Dietmar. Explorer hangs while using the Accelerator. Although, as I understand the extension is unsupported, is there any chance of anyone looking into the issue. Alternatively, is there a possibility of opensourcing the extension, so it can become "community supported"?