Don't want iBooks to always paste the “Excerpt From” of what I have copied

Question

I read on iBooks, and some other resources and gather my notes in EverNote. When I copy a text from iBooks to keep it as a note in some other external application like EverNote, it keeps pasting the source info which is so annoying and I have to keep deleting them after every copy-paste. For example:

“To bind this class using Ninject, I specify the value of the constructor parameter using the WithConstructorArgument method in the AddBindings method, as shown in Listing 6-20.”

Excerpt From: Adam Freeman. “Pro ASP.NET MVC 5.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=4CB3769B56E7D2A905C0332D53D7E31D

Answer 1

This blog post gives an example of how to do it using an Automator script with a keyboard shortcut.

In Automator, create a new Service that receives no input. Give it these three actions:

1. Get Contents of Clipboard
2. Run Shell Script
3. Copy to Clipboard

Put this in the Run Shell Script action:

# strip out iBooks citation
sed -E -e 's/^[ ]?[0-9]* //g' | sed -E -e 's/“[ ]?[0-9]?[ ]?//g' | sed -E -e 's/”$//g'  | sed -E -e 's/^(Excerpt From).*//g'

After saving the service, you can assign a shortcut to this action, such as ⌃⌥⌘I, in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services. Then you hit that shortcut before you paste if you want to get rid of the text that iBooks added.

Answer 2

You could use Keyboard Maestro to trigger the following AppleScript:

set original_clipboard to the clipboard
set paragraph_count to count of paragraphs of original_clipboard
-- assuming the last two paragraphs are what you want to strip out--
-- that is, the blank line and the attribution
set new_clipboard to paragraphs 1 thru -2 of original_clipboard as string
set the clipboard to new_clipboard
-- now you can paste

With Keyboard Maestro you would make a new macro, triggered by some keystroke (maybe Command-Option-V), and the first step would be an "Execute an AppleScript" (in the Execute section) using the above script. The next step would be a "Paste" (in the Clipboard section). You would copy your text, then click where you want to paste it, then press Command-Option-V to have it pasted in without the last two paragraphs.

Other macro programs would work too as long as they know how to execute an AppleScript.

Answer 3

I have created a script for ClipMenu (macOS clipboard utility) to strip unwanted information:

return clipText.replace(/^“/, '').replace(/”\s*Excerpt.*iBooks\.\s?$/, '');

Save as /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/ClipMenu/script/action/iBooks.js

Answer 4

Below are steps for copying text from iBooks:

1. Highlight the passages you wish to copy.
2. A popup will be opened automatically or you must open a popup using a right click on selected passages.
3. Select the 'Add Note' option from the popup.
4. The selected/highlighted text will be shown on the left pane.
5. Right click on the passages in the left panel and select the 'Copy' option.

I have created a video to show how it works: https://youtu.be/ZQLl_Gl9TMw

Happy coding!

Answer 5

Here is how to set up a Keyboard Maestro macro to strip the extra text, including the quotation marks, the moment the text is copied from iBooks.

First, create a macro group called “iBooks-specific mapping” and add iBooks within “Available in these applications”. (In more recent macOS versions, the application will be named Books instead of iBooks.)

Then create a macro named “Copy Without Citation”. Assign it the hot key ⌘C. Give the macro the following actions:

1. Clipboard > Copy
2. Clipboard > Search and Replace
   • Search: System Clipboard
   • for: Regular Expression (case sensitive)
     • ^“
   • and replace with:
     • (leave empty)
3. Clipboard > Search and Replace
   • Search: System Clipboard
   • for: Regular Expression (case sensitive)
     • ”\s*Excerpt.*Books\.\s?$
   • and replace with:
     • (leave empty)

This is how it will look in Keyboard Maestro:

Now any text in iBooks copied using that keyboard shortcut will have the extra text stripped from both ends.

Answer 6

from Amir Raminfar's answer. this is a way if you want copy directly without Command C to save content to clip board.

just change Workflow receives current to: "text" in "Books.app" and disable get contents of Clipboard.