When a group of files is selected, how can I copy just the file names?

Question

I used to be able to select a group of files in a finder window, copy, then paste the names in an email or document. It no longer allows this. Is there away around this other than copying each file name individually?

Answer 1

I'm also at 10.5.4, just had forgotten to update my profile.
One "gotcha" can be if the application, such as Mail, is actually able to DO something with the files. In the case of Mail, it can add the content of many sorts of files to the message, or add the files to a message as attachments. That's why the Clipboard will say the content is "text/items" since what will be pasted depends on the destination. This is relatively new in OS X--I remember being astonished when it first turned up.
TextEdit, IF it is in Rich Text Format, can also handle a number of different sorts of files. If you want to use TextEdit as the "intermediate" destination to get a text list, be sure you go to the Format menu item, and select "Make Plain Text" before you paste. Actually, since I use TextEdit mainly for tasks, such as hand coding HTML, I have its default behavior to open all new windows in plain text, then if I actually want some formatting, I change it to Rich Text. In Rich Text it will accept pasting of all sorts of graphics files, so you see the jpeg, gif or png, you can even paste sound files in as actual sound files (and they'll play, too), plus the icons for folders and other files (such as PDFs).
Francine
Francine
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