Create Clip from Text File

The Create Clip from Text File button is available on the collection toolbar when the ClipHistory tab or an AceText Collection tab is active.

Click the Create Clip from Text File button or press Shift+Ctrl+O on the keyboard to select one or more files. Each file you select is added as a new clip to the active collection. The names of the files are used as labels for the clips. Their full paths are used as URLs for the clips. The date on the clip is set to the file’s last modification date.

The contents of the file are stored into the AceText collection, and no reference is kept to the file. Editing or overwriting the file does not automatically update the clip in AceText. Likewise, editing a clip created from a file in AceText does not update that file.

AceText can only read plain text files, such as text documents (.txt), HTML files (.html), XML data (.xml), software source code, etc. AceText automatically detects Unicode files, with or without a Unicode signature (BOM). Unicode files are loaded as plain text clips. If a file does not look like it’s a Unicode file, AceText checks whether the file contains NULL bytes. If it does, loads the file as binary data. All other files are loaded as text files using your computer’s default non-Unicode encoding.

AceText cannot decode proprietary file formats, such as Microsoft Word documents (.doc), Excel spreadsheets (*.xls) or Acrobat PDF files (*.pdf). It will load them as binary data. To transfer text from such files into AceText, open the file in its corresponding application. Then use copy and paste or drag and drop between that application and AceText. The software will then decode its own proprietary file format and offer the contents as plain text to AceText.

See Capture, Enter and Store Text to learn how to use AceText.