Clipboard Master 5.5.0

Overview

Clipboard Master is a free, handy, light application that manages copy-pasting tasks in one application. It is a non-interfering program that runs in the background and does not consume much of your system’s resources. Clipboard Master memorizes the texts, words, letter sequences, images, zip archives and files you want to copy. The application can copy-paste any file from and to any Windows application. It sorts and manages the data in separate structured modules, and keeps them handy for you. After reboot, your Clipboard data is preserved.

Clipboard Master offers automatic and manual collections, search options and browser add-ons for smooth integration with your browsers. You can use the program with the help of hotkeys, or mouse and keyboard. There is a fixed clipboard for commonly used words and sentences.

Installation

Clipboard Master is compatible with Windows XP to 8.1, 32 or 64 bit. Installation requires min. 1Ghz, min 20 MB on HD. The installation comes quick and clean - no bundled apps. The application then tries to install a browser add-on to be able to function with the browser data, as well. The user can choose whether to install the browser add-on, or not, which is good. The user also gets to choose the difficulty level - simple, default and advanced, developer. After the installation, when you launch the program for the first time, you are offered to go through some basic settings, like hot keys, folders to save copied files.

Interface

Now, GUI is nothing we would expect. Clipboard Master offers categorized modules, and the user just has to get used to how things are compartmentalized there. Once installed, the program runs in the background, and you have to look for it in the task bar. When right-clicking on its icon, the program displays a number of options you can do. Overall interface experience is somewhat dubious - we see the program has immense potential due to the feature-rich set, but the GUI is not user-friendly, or intuitive. Besides, the hot keys are numerous and difficult to memorize.

Features

Clipboard Master offers an extensive number of smart features, like the ability to paste in any application and  any text field, text modules, quick search and filter, quick pasting with the keyboard and mouse, URL shortener, screenshot tool.

Pros

• Option to copy words, text, images, entire files and paste them in any Windows application
• Handy for advanced users
• The content remains in the clipboard after Windows reboot
• URL shortening tool is useful for those who work with such social media as Facebook and Twitter
• Autocopy feature adds everything you copy to the clipboard
• Text expander types in the text attached to the shortcut
• Suggests words as you type

Cons

• Memorizing all the shortcuts is difficult for some (Author's note: I know Clipboard Master has a lot of shortcuts, but in fact only 2 needs to be memorized: <Win + V> (or <Ins>) to display the clipboad masters list and <ctrl + menu key> for the global context menu. Most of the functions are available via the global context menu.)
• Some random files will not save in the clipboard, and it is difficult to say what is the pattern here
• GUI is not intuitive
• Email module is in German

Alternatives

Known direct alternatives are PhraseExpress, 101 Clips and Giant Multifunctional Clipboard.

Conclusion

Clipboard Master is a solid, powerful tool for copy-pasting and managing multiple formats of data you use to work, create and compile your content.