SecureCRT Feature - Alt Select

If you are a SecureCRT user, here's a feature that might save you some time. Let's say you have a list of information in your terminal window that you'd like to copy - perhaps the output of "show ip interface brief." However, instead of the whole output, you only want the list of interfaces, not the rest of it. Normally, you would just highly the whole output of information and then either paste it as is or paste it in a notepad window and delete all the stuff you don't want. 

This gives you the following output:

R2#show ip int bri
Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
Serial0/0                  unassigned      YES unset  up                    up      
Serial0/1                  unassigned      YES manual up                    down    
Serial0/2                  unassigned      YES unset  up                    down    
Serial0/3                  unassigned      YES unset  administratively down down    
FastEthernet1/0            10.1.1.2        YES manual up                    up      
FastEthernet2/0            192.168.100.2   YES manual up                    up      
Multilink1                 223.254.254.198 YES manual up                    up     

Well, there is another way. A much cleaner way...

In the same terminal window, simply hold down the Alt key while highlighting the specific area of data that you want. You will get a highlight box that conforms to where the mouse cursor is pointing. Here is a screenshot to demonstrate:

Now when you paste, you get the following ouput:

Interface       
Serial0/0       
Serial0/1       
Serial0/2       
Serial0/3       
FastEthernet1/0 
FastEthernet2/0 
Multilink1  

This comes in handy when building scripts, creating reports, or manipulating data on devices with many interfaces, like a fully populated 6509 or Nexus 7k. Note: On a Macbook Pro keyboard, to get Alt you have to hold down the function key (fn) then press the Option key.

Hopefully this tip helps you out. Feel free to share your own handy tips in the comments below.