Working with text can be a pain, especially when you copy and paste something with strange formatting. Boop is a free and open source Mac application by developer Ivan Mathy. The idea is to paste text into it, transform it somehow with just a few keystrokes, and then copy it back into whatever app you’re using it with.

This is a little tricky to understand, so let’s talk about an example. If you have a piece of text that is all uppercase and you want it to not be, you can paste the text into this application and run the “Downcase” script to change it. In the blink of an eye, your text will be all lowercase.

You can choose a script with the keyboard shortcut CMD+B or you can click the Select your action box at the top of the window. A pop-up window will let you search for a script, browse with the arrows and press Enter to apply the script to your text.

If you want to get an idea of the scripts that are offered, you can open the popup and type an asterisk. You will see a complete list. You will also see a lot of scripts related to programming, which is the real target audience of the app. I think it is also useful for writers. My personal favorite scripts do things like remove unnecessary line breaks, convert color codes, and replace smart quotes.