How to Cut / Copy and Paste between programs!

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This question was answered on July 17, 2000. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

Cut (or Copy) and Paste are invaluable time saving commands for computer users. It lets you lift sections of text or pictures from one program to another. Grab a recipe or picture from the web, forward an e-mail message without the long list of addresses or take a web address and paste it into an e-mail message. It’s very easy, once you know these basics:

Text – place the cursor at the beginning of the phrase, web address, sentence or paragraph that you would like to copy. Press and hold the left mouse button, then drag the mouse to the end of the section or sentence then release the mouse button. This will “highlight” the section that you wish to copy. If you did not get everything you wanted, simply click at the beginning and start over. Once you have highlighted what you want to copy, you have several options:

1. Click on the Edit menu then on Copy.

2. Or, right-click anywhere on the highlighted text and choose Copy from the dialog box.

3. Or, press and hold the CTRL key then press the C key.

It may seem like nothing happened but, any of the above actions will copy the highlighted text to the Windows Clipboard, which is an invisible section of memory in your computer that acts as a temporary holding place. Next, open the program (e-mail, word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) to which you wish to transfer the text. Once the program is open, click on the area that you wish to have the text appear then do one of the following:

1. Click on the Edit menu then on Paste

2. Or, right-click on the section then choose Paste from the dialog box.

3. Or, press and hold the CTRL key then press the V key.

Any of the above actions will copy the contents of the Clipboard to the desired program.

Pictures or graphics - Copying images is even easier! Simply right-click on the image and choose Copy from the dialog box. Open the desired program, right-click where you want the image to go, and then choose Paste.

Using the above methods, you can easily “lift” just the relevant information from those irritating e-mail messages that have 15 pages of addresses but only three lines of text that has any real value. Instead of forwarding the entire message, copy and paste the relevant information into a new message and your friends, family and co-workers will thank you for it!

When you find a great bit of information on the web that you wish to share with others but the page has a huge address, you will no longer have to type it out manually. Highlight the entire address in your web browsers address bar then right-click and copy to the clipboard. Open your e-mail program, start a new message, then right-click and Paste the address in. Type a little message like, “check out this cool website…” and send it off!

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