Show This chapter is from the book Perhaps the most important benefit of word processing over typewriter use is the ability to move and copy objects and blocks of text. There are many ways of accomplishing move and copy operations in Word, so you can select whatever method is most comfortable for you or makes the most sense in a particular situation. The following sections explain the various move and copy operations and the differences between them. Moving or Copying Text with Drag-and-DropDrag-and-drop operations are popular because they most closely resemble the way you do things outside the computer. (Yes, there really is a life outside the computer!) When you want to move something in your living room, you pick it up and reposition it. Or if it's heavy, like a piece of furniture, you drag it and drop it. You can do the same thing with objects and with blocks of selected text in Word. For a standard drag-and-drop operation, follow these steps:
There are additional drag-and-drop options; to see them, use the right mouse button rather than the left one in the preceding steps. (Don't hold down the Ctrl key if you are using the right mouse button.) When you release the mouse button in step 4, a shortcut menu appears with these choices on it:
Using Cut, Copy, and PasteOne of the complaints that many people have with drag-and-drop is that they are simply not coordinated enough to manage positioning the mouse pointer in exactly the right spot while holding down keys and mouse buttons. People who have this problem may prefer to use the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands instead. Cut and Copy are very similar operations. Cut removes the selection from the document and places it on the Clipboard, which is a hidden holding area; Copy leaves the selection as is and places a copy of it on the Clipboard. After a Cut or Copy operation, you can then use Paste to place the Clipboard's content at the insertion point location. Word offers ribbon, keyboard, and right-click methods for issuing the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands. Table 3.5 summarizes them. Table 3.5. Cut, Copy, and Paste Methods
Pasting with Paste SpecialThe Paste Special command enables you to define the format of the pasted copy, and in some circumstances also create a dynamic link to the original. To use Paste Special instead of Paste, open the drop-down menu below the Paste button and select Paste Special from that menu, as in Figure 3.9.
Figure 3.9 Select Paste Special from the Paste button's options. Doing so opens the Paste Special dialog box, shown in Figure 3.10.
Figure 3.10 Use the Paste Special dialog box to paste in a different way than the default. For a normal (nonlinked) paste, select a paste format from the As list. The choices on the list depend on the type of content you cut or copied. For example, if you copied some text from another document that had some unusual formatting, you could choose to keep that formatting by selecting Formatted Text (RTF), or you could choose to discard that formatting by selecting Unformatted Text. Pasting in a format whose name ends with "Object" creates an embedded copy that retains its link to the original program. This is not especially relevant for copying text within and between Word documents because the original program is Word itself, but it makes a difference when copying multimedia content, such as graphics from a graphics program, into Word, for example. When you choose an "Object" format, the selection is placed in its own separate frame from the rest of the document, and you can edit that object in its native program later by double-clicking it. Under some circumstances, a Paste Link option is also available. For Paste Link to be available, the selection must have been copied from some other document or file than the one in which it is being pasted, and the document/file from which it came must have been saved at least once (so it has a filename, not just the generic "Document1" name a file gets before it is saved). Paste Link creates a dynamic link between the original and the copy so that when the original changes, the copy also changes.
Using Paste OptionsAfter you have pasted something in Word, a Paste Options button appears next to it. You can click this button to open a menu of choices governing the paste operation, as shown in Figure 3.11. Here are the choices:
Figure 3.11 Choose options for the paste operation just performed. The Set Default Paste command opens the Word Options dialog box (same as Office, Word Options) and displays the Advanced options. From here you can set a variety of paste options in the Cut, Copy, and Paste section, as shown in Figure 3.12:
Figure 3.12 Paste options are controlled in the Word Options dialog box.
Using the Office ClipboardThe Office Clipboard is an expanded version of the Windows Clipboard. It can hold up to 24 selections, and you can choose which item to paste with each operation. To access any clips other than the last one stored, you must display the Office Clipboard task pane. To view the Office Clipboard task pane, click the dialog box launcher for the Clipboard group on the Home tab. The Office Clipboard appears to the left of the main document window, as shown in Figure 3.14.
Figure 3.14 Use the Clipboard task pane to access the Office Clipboard's 24 separate areas for storing clips. Each time you copy something to the Clipboard, it is added to the Clipboard task pane's list, with the most recently added items at the top. To paste an item from it, position the insertion point and then click that item in the Clipboard task pane. To paste all the items at once, click Paste All. To remove a single item from the Clipboard task pane, right-click the item and click Delete (see Figure 3.15). (Alternatively, you can point at the item until a down arrow appears to its right. Click that down arrow to open the same menu as with right-clicking; then click Delete.)
Figure 3.15 Delete an item from the Clipboard. To clear the entire Clipboard at once, click the Clear All button at the top. Clearing the Office Clipboard also clears the Windows Clipboard. To fine-tune how the Office Clipboard works, click the Options button. A menu appears with these options on it:
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