I’m wondering if there is any way, preferably without 3rd party software, to set up a hot key combination to paste a block of text in Windows (XP). Such as, Ctrl-Alt-M to paste my mailing address into whatever field my cursor may be in. I know that some apps, such as Word allow for this type of thing with macros, but can it be done throughout windows? I thought maybe a batch file of some type, since any shortcut can have a hot key combination assigned to it, but I couldn’t see how to make this work.
Thanks in advance for any help on this.
Chris
Shift + Insert will paste text
Actually, I want to paste specific text or block of text. Not whatever is in the clipboard.
Never mind, I see in looking at your question more throughly that’s not what you’re asking.
This might be of interest
Windows 3.1 used to have a macro recorder for that kind of thing. I think that was gone in later versions though
ctrl+c will copy highlighted text
ctrl+v will paste said text
computers not being one of my major understandings I don’t know if this is any help to you. I tried at least.
In any Windows application, Ctrl + C will ‘copy’ any textual content that has been highlighted, or otherwise selected or demarcated.
Ctrl + V will then ‘paste’ this same selected content into any other Windows app that has a suitable field or frame or cursor insertion point.
So you can type your mailing address anywhere (even in Notebook), then select it and Ctrl + C, and you’re ready to Ctrl + V it into as many fields as you want.
I guess I need to clarify.
I want a hot key combo that will always be my address. And another that will always be my email. etc… I don’t want the contents of the clipboard to play any role in this functionality. I use the clipboard all day. And the contents of it are constantly changing. I want a permanent text block to be, lets say ‘insertable’ instead of pastable, via hotkey combination.
It may be possible to do it through hot-key combinations, but one thing that occurs to me is to place the half dozen things you want to be able to paste as “scraps” on your desktop – highlight, click, and drag them from the appropriate source. Then pull in the “scrap” into your document, spreadsheet, etc. as needed.
I’ll warrant there’s an easier way I don’t know, however.
I don’t think you can do it without 3rd party software.
QuicKeys is worth the investment, though.
You need a macros utility.
You could accomplish this (task) a couple of ways…you were right in that you could use something like a batch job. Read a little about Windows Script Host
http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/wsh/quickref/wsh_intro.html
You can simply create a script that accepts parameters for whatever you want to do (write addresses, names etc). I think you can pass the parameters in the command line and save that as a shortcut, then map a hotkey combo to that shortcut…if not, you can definitely create a separate script for each task and create shortcuts for those.
Depending on how much work you want to put into it, you could have a list of names (or whatever) in a text file that is read by the script, or you could hard code the info into the script itself.
You can write to a text field with SendKeys method:
http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/wsh/quickref/wshshell_SendKeys.html
That’s it. That works perfectly. I knew there had to be some way to do it natively.
Thanks!!