It doesn't take long to realize that the applications that come built in to Palm Pilots have limitations. The same applications that amaze and impress you the day you buy your Palm suddenly become inferior just when you need them most. The Palm Pilot is a unique device that has allowed me to leave my laptop home. I'm able to carry Excel Spreadsheets, send and receive email and compose documents on the road. While the Palm is a readily capable pocket computer, it is third party software developers like Stand Alone, Inc. that we have to thank for much of our PDA's functionality.

Clipper is an enhancement for the Palm Pilot's built in clipboard. The built in clipboard is limited to 1K in size and one "selection" at a time. Try to copy the body of a lengthy email or memo and you'll find yourself stuck. The answer, select half, copy open the destination app., paste, go back, and repeat with second half. What a pain in the neck. Or, have you ever tried to copy a contact from your Address Book to another application, like ToDo? Select last name, copy, open ToDo, paste. Open address book, select first name, copy, open ToDo, paste. And so on and so on. Each field has to be selected, copied and pasted individually. Now try to do that while in a meeting, or on the phone. Too much time. Too much aggravation.

With Clipper, your clipboard's size is unlimited. Copy entire Memos, or even docs. It's as simple as selecting, opening Clipper and choosing Copy Selected Text. Remember that just using the copy command in your Palm will not access Clipper.

To launch Clipper, you must select which top corner of the graffiti are will become the "trigger". Open Clipper and choose Menu-Preferences. You are also given the option to remove pasted items from the Clipper's menu. I chose to remove pasted items because the Menu got very cluttered, in my opinion, with all the information just sitting there. You can also tell Clipper to add a space before pasting. I found this option handy in that I didn't have to remember to put the space in myself.

Clipper's Menu also allows you to paste names, phone and/or fax numbers, email addresses, whole memos, the date and the time in a single tap. With Clipper open, choose Menu-Additional Menu Items and you can choose any combination of the above to be listed in Clipper's menu. One last feature that I've found myself using a lot, is Clipper's Clippings. You can store frequently used words or phrases here and have them available as well in a single tap. I stored my name and email address in clippings, and now, I don't have to repeatedly retype the information at the end of memos and emails. I had no trouble understanding and setting Clipper's features. That's good, because the text file that comes with Clipper provides little guidance.

Not convinced yet? Let's take Clipper for a test drive. Remember that contact I wanted to copy from Address Book and put in ToDo? Select last name, open clipper using the corner of the graffiti area you selected, copy. Select first name, open clipper, copy. Select phone number, open Clipper, copy. Now, open ToDo. Open Clipper, paste first name, open Clipper, past last name, open Clipper, past phone number. Finished! Notice that as you paste, the information is removed from the menu. You can copy any text and move it to any application just that easily.

Want to paste an entire memo? Don't waste time dragging over all the text to select. As long as you have Paste a Memo selected in Additional Menu Items, just open Clipper and select Paste a Memo. You'll be given a list of categories from your Memo Pad. Choose the category and you'll be shown a list of memos in that category. Select your memo, and there it is. The same simple procedure is followed for names, phone numbers, the date, etc.