In Finder you can select a bit of text, then drag it to the desktop. This creates a text clipping (.textClipping file). But when you reopen the text clipping, you can’t select and copy the text from the text clipping.

Generally I’ll take a quick screen grab of what I’m trying to save (using Command + Shift + 4), but this saves an image. Of course, the text within the image is not selectable, so a text clipping seems to be a better fit. But, nope. For some reason this feature is disabled by default.

But you can fix it. I found this over at macosxhints.com that goes through the steps of enabling this feature. Here’s my summary:

1. Modify the file /System > Library > CoreServices > Finder > Contents > Resources > [language].lproj > ClipWindow.nib > objects.xib

2. Change the value of <boolean name=”noSelection”> from true to false

3. Relaunch Finder

Make sure to make a backup of the objects.xib file. If you mess the file up, at least you can revert to the backup. And if you don’t make the backup, mess up the file, then don’t come crying to me.