Clipboard - Copying and Moving Text

The ability to move around text in a document was probably one of the first things we liked when we moved from the typewriter to the word processor.  Hopefully cutting and pasting is second nature to most of you.  But for those who may need a few tips to speed up the process, this post is for you.  This function is known as "clipboard" in Windows.  You are essentially saving data to a temporary file, the "clipboard," and then pulling it out again.

Basic Cut, Copy and Paste

The difference between copy and paste vs. cut and paste is that copy makes a second copy of the text, where cut and paste deletes the text from the original location and moves it to the new location. A common method to do this by using your mouse to select the text to be moved, clicking on the tool bar or right clicking to select "copy" or "cut" then move your cursor to the new location where you again go to the toolbar, or right click to select "paste."

Drag and Drop

Windows also gives you the ability to highlight a section of text in one Window, click on it with your mouse, then drag it to a second window and release the mouse button to paste.  This can save you a few steps, but you must have both windows open and visible, neither using the full screen.

Keyboard Commands

For the keyboard user, you may do the same thing by holding the shift button and using arrow keys to select the text you want.  Then use ctrl-x to cut, ctrl-c to copy and ctrl-v to paste.  You can also select an entire document all at once by using ctrl-a.  Another important command to know is if you just cut or copied something and want to undo, use ctrl-z.

Works across programs

In Windows, these command will work across almost all applications.  I frequently will "select" document in Word or WordPerfect, then paste the text into say Google Docs to create a new document.  Usually most formatting will come along, but some advanced formatting may not.  Pictures will also usually be copied if the new program supports them.

Lose the formatting

There are times when you want to copy the text but not the formatting.  For example, you don't want a different text size or color if you are pasting a sentence into another document.  For this, use ctrl-shift-v to paste the text without the formatting.  This option is also available on most mouse menus when you right click.  It may say "paste as plain text" or "paste special" and then select "plain text."

This saves time in many ways

We mostly use this feature to move a longer clip of information that would take too long to retype, or for specific information like a phone number or name that we don't want to mistype.  Another time this is handy is when you have a special symbol or word that uses foreign characters.  Sure, you can figure out how to generate those characters yourself.  But it is often easier to find the word somewhere else and quickly copy and paste it into the document where you need it.

Remembering your Clips

The clipboard feature has been easy to use because of its simplicity.  It is a quick way to get move information around.  But a price of this simplicity is the limitation on it is that you can only move one thing at a time.  You cannot even move to separate parts of same document at once.  There may be occasions when you want to clip multiple things before placing them in the new location.

One easy option for this is to quickly cut and paste your selections into a a word processing document such as WordPerfect, Google Docs, or even just Wordpad - built into all Windows computers.  Then simply grab them from there when ready to place them where you want them permanently.

There are also several "clipboard" programs that will allow you to clip multiple items, allowing multiple clips to be "remembered" by being saved in the program.  You can then select which once you want pasted when you are ready.  A good free program that does this is CLCL.  Which is easily installed on any Windows computer.  Personally, I don't use a program like this much.   Basic cut and past works well enough for me and keeps things simple.  But if you are so inclined, you can give it a try.  Keep in mind that the help desk does not use these Apps, so their ability to help with problems is very limited.