PureText Home Page

PureText 3.0

Have you ever copied some text from a web page or a document and then wanted to paste it as simple text into another application without getting all the formatting from the original source? PureText makes this simple by adding a new Windows hot-key (default is WINDOWS+V) that allows you to paste text to any application without formatting.

After running PureText.exe, you will see a "PT" icon appear near the clock on your task bar. You can click on this icon to remove formatting from the text that is currently on the clipboard. You can right-click on the icon to display a menu with more options.

The easiest way to use PureText is to simply use its hot-key to paste text instead of using the standard CTRL+V hot-key that is built into most Windows applications. To configure PureText, right-click on its tray icon and choose "Options" from the pop-up menu. The default hot-key is WINDOWS+V, but this can be changed. In this Options window, you can also configure PureText to run each time you log into Windows.

What PureText Will and Will Not Do

PureText only removes rich formatting from text. This includes the font face, font style (bold, italics, etc.), font color, paragraph styles (left/right/center aligned), margins, character spacing, bullets, subscript, superscript, tables, charts, pictures, embedded objects, etc. However, it does not modify the actual text. It will not remove or fix new-lines, carriage returns, tabs, or other white-space. It will not fix word-wrap or clean up your paragraphs. If you copy the source code of a web page to the clipboard, it is not going to remove all the HTML tags. If you copy text from an actual web page (not the source of the page), it will remove the formatting.

PureText is basically equivalent to opening Notepad, doing a PASTE, followed by a SELECT-ALL, and then a COPY. The benefit of PureText is performing all these actions with a single Hot-Key and having the result pasted into the current window automatically.

Download the latest version here:

PureText 3.0 [32-bit] (Windows 95 - Windows 8) [13k]

PureText 3.0 [64-bit] (Windows XP - Windows 8) [14k]

PureText doesn't use a setup program. The above links are ZIP files that contain a single PureText.exe file. You can save PureText.exe anywhere you wish (Program Files, My Documents, some utilities folder, etc.) and then just double-click on it to run it. After running PureText.exe, you will see a "PT" icon appear near the clock on your task bar. You can right-click on the icon to display a menu with more options.

If you wish to ever uninstall PureText, first make sure PureText is not running. If you see the "PT" icon on your Windows task bar, just right-click on it and choose "Exit". Once PureText has exited, simply delete PureText.exe to complete the uninstall.

What is new in version 3.0

Fixed issue that prevented many Hot-Keys from working on Windows 8. You can once again use WINDOWS+V and many other Hot-Key combinations.
Fixed pasting issue with Firefox 17, Thunderbird 17, and other Mozilla products.
Added support for using the ALT key in Hot-Keys.
Adding a Windows 64-bit version of PureText for the first time.

What was new in version 2.0

Added Unicode support when running on Windows NT/2K/XP/2003/Vista/7/8.
Added an option to play a sound when the Hot-Key is pressed.
Added option to have PureText start each time you log on to Windows.
Updated dialogs to use new XP look when running on XP and beyond.
Added command line options to allow PureText to convert the clipboard contents to pure text, optionally perform a paste and play a sound, and then immediately exit. Run "PureText.exe /?" for command line help.
Changed the default Hot-Key to WINDOWS+V.
Removed the ability to create Hot-Keys that include the ALT key, as the ALT key prevents the Paste feature from working.
Fixed some issues with the Hot-Key capture dialog.
Blocked all Hot-Keys that contain CTRL+V, as they cause problems with the Paste feature.
Fixed an issue that only allowed up to 30,000 characters to be converted.
Reworded key names in Options dialog.
Updated icon.

What was new in Version 1.2:

Added feature to optionally perform a paste when Hot-Key is pressed.

What was new in Version 1.1:

Added Hot-Key to convert the clipboard to pure text.

What was in Version 1.0:

Just a tray icon you could click on to convert the clipboard to pure text.

PureText is completely free to use. You may not profit from the distribution of it, nor may you bundle it with another product. If you would like to link to PureText, please do so by linking to this page (http://SteveMiller.net/PureText)