How to Copy and Paste

One of the best things that you can learn is how to copy and paste. It takes a little practice but it's worth the effort! You will use it in so many places and in so many ways.

When you copy text, it is saved on a virtual 'clipboard' (a memory area in your computer) and it stays there until it is replaced by another block of copied text. There is only room for one copied item at a time on the standard Windows clipboard. There are replacement clipboards that let you save and organize multiple 'clippings'. This page will deal only with the internal Windows clipboard. Other operating systems, like the Mac and LINUX, have copy/paste processes that are similar.

When you are ready to paste your clipping it is waiting there on the clipboard. You can paste it one time or over and over again until you replace it with another clipping. This really helps with the tedious task of replacing the same thing multiple times.

There are several ways to copy. The most common is to highlight the text you want to copy by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse poniter over the text. Then right-click and select 'Copy' from the pop-up menu. Some people have a little trouble with the right-click at this point. That's okay. You can also copy your highlighted text by selecting 'Copy' from the 'Edit' menu at the top of your current window.

Another way to copy the highlighted text is to press and hold the CTRL key and then tap (or press) the C key once.

That's all there is to it. With this simple process you will have copied the highlighted text to the 'clipboard'.

Pasting the copied text to another point in the same document is easy. Just move the mouse pointer to the spot you want the text to begin. Right-click and select 'Paste' from the pop-up menu. You can also select 'Paste' from the 'Edit' menu at the top of the current window or you can press and hold the CTRL key and tap (or press) the V key once.

To paste the copied text into another document or even a message entry window on a chat board or other web page, just open the window where you want to paste the text, click with your mouse in the place where you want the pasted text to go, and use one of the right-click pop-up menu, the Edit menu or the CTRL-V methods as described above.

That's all there is to it. With a little practice, you will be copying and pasting anything you want.

Some programs or web pages do not support the right-click pop-up menu or do not have an Edit menu at the top of the window. In those cases the CTRL key method will almost always work.

To cut (rather than just copy) text, select 'Cut' from the menus or use CTRL-X. Pasting cut text is exactly the same as pasting copied text. Cut removes the text from the original document and copy leaves the original text in place. Remember that you must save a changed document for the changes to be kept.

It's always the right time to use good code!

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