Cut/Copy/Paste and the Clipboard
The “clipboard” is a concept familiar to most people
who have used modern word processors. It is a piece of your computers
memory which is set aside as a temporary storage space. Text can be
“Cut” or “Copied” from your document into
the clipboard. You can move to another part of the document or to
another application entirely, and “Paste” this text at the new
location.
The most common use for the clipboard is to move or copy text
which has already entered into one part of the document to another
part of the same document or to another document entirely.
This concept is probably best described with an example.
To do this, we begin with a test sentence
Using the mouse or keyboard, select the phrase
“ big, red” (notice the space before “big” is selected).
Now select
->
from
the menubar.
This has moved a copy of the selected text to the
clipboard.
Now place the mouse cursor directly behind the word
“lazy” and click once.
Now select
->
from the menubar.
The resulting sentence is:
The clipboard is not limited to text.
The clipboard can contain tables, pictures, spreadsheets or any other type of information.
The
command can be invoked 4 ways:
-
By selecting
->
from
the menubar
-
By clicking
on the toolbar.
-
Using the keyboard shortcut:
Ctrl
+
C
or the alternate keyboard shortcut:
Ctrl
+
Insert
-
After the text is selected, click once with the right mouse button and hold the button down.
A small popup menu will appear. Simply select
Copy
The
command moves a copy of the selected data
to the clipboard.
The original data is
unaffected.
The
command can be invoked 4 ways:
-
By selecting
->
from
the menubar
-
By clicking
on the toolbar.
-
Using the keyboard shortcut:
Ctrl
+
X
or the alternate keyboard shortcut:
Shift
+
Delete
-
After the text is selected, click once with the right mouse button and hold the button down.
A small popup menu will appear. Simply select
Cut
The
command moves a copy of the selected data
to the clipboard.
The selected data is then deleted from the
document.
The
command can be invoked 4 ways:
-
By selecting
->
from the menubar
-
By clicking
on the toolbar.
-
Using the keyboard shortcut:
Ctrl
+
V
or the alternate keyboard shortcut:
Shift
+
Insert
-
Place the cursor where the contents of the clipboard
should be inserted. Click once with the right mouse button and hold the button down. A small
popup menu will appear. Simply select
Paste
The
command inserts a copy of all the data in
the clipboard at the current position of the cursor. The clipboard is
unaffected. (So another paste command will produce yet another copy of
the data in the document.)
Note
If no text in the document is currently highlighted, the
command
inserts
the data at the current position of the cursor.
If there is selected text when the
command is executed, the selected text
is
replaced
with the contents of the
clipboard.
Tip
The clipboard is not limited to the bounds of the current document. If
text is copied (or cut) from a document, this text can be pasted
into another open document, or another application entirely.
