CHAPTER 8

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting Using the Clipboard

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding the Windows Clipboard versus the Office Clipboard
• Learning the various ways to move and copy document content
• Copying and moving sections with collapsible headings
• Taking advantage of pasting options
• Setting the default paste option and using Paste Special
• Managing Clipboard pane items
• Working with the Office Clipboard and pasting options

Only very rare individuals can compose a document and get all their thoughts in the right order on the first take. Most of us work with more of a stream-of-consciousness style, jumping back and forth between topics while we try to capture our thoughts. Luckily for us, Word enables us to rearrange the content in any document as much as needed to create a more cohesive flow and enhance clarity.

You can pick words up either alone or in groups and move them around in the document. If you create a line you like, you can repeat it and tweak it.

Word's Cut, Copy, and Paste commands work in conjunction with the Office Clipboard, a multifunction center for rearranging document content. In this chapter, you'll learn the various ways you can use these tools and customize how they work for you.

Understanding the Office Clipboard

A clipboard is a temporary storage area you can use to transfer text, files, pictures, and other objects between different programs or different parts of a single program. You copy or cut text from one location, and then paste it in the destination location.

Windows has long had a clipboard that you can use in just about any Windows program. You can use Windows’ Clipboard to transfer files, pictures, text, and so on between different documents in different programs. The Windows Clipboard stores only a single item at a time.

The Office Clipboard in Office 2013 can store up to 24 items. Each time you copy or cut a new selection, Office adds it to the top of the list in the Office Clipboard. When the Clipboard reaches 24 items, adding another item causes the oldest item to disappear.

All of this happens behind the scenes, because the Clipboard pane for the Office Clipboard remains hidden until you want to work with more of the items it holds. An ordinary paste command pastes the most recent item from the top of the list. The “Using the Clipboard Pane” section later in this chapter explains how to use the Office Clipboard in more detail.

Adding and Moving Document Content with Cut, Copy, and Paste

Word offers a number of ways to accomplish a copy or move operation. The first two copy or move methods require you to complete two separate actions:

• When you copy a selection, use the Copy command so Word places a duplicate of it on the Office Clipboard. You then must select a destination for the duplicate by positioning the insertion point, and use Paste to place the duplicate in position.
• When you move a selection, use the Cut command so Word removes the text from its current location and places the text on the Office Clipboard. From there, you again move the insertion point to the desired destination and choose Paste to place the moved selection in position.

What concerns you up front is the commands and techniques you use to copy or move any selected text. Word gives you a number of methods for doing this.

Keep in mind that in some instances when you move or copy text, you may have to do some cleanup afterward depending on how the document is formatted and how well you made your selection. For example, you may need to click at the end of a pasted paragraph and press Enter to add a new paragraph break, or you might need to click at the end of a sentence and press the Spacebar to make sure sentences don't run together.

You can use the Clipboard in a variety of ways, and other copy and move methods skip the Clipboard altogether. The following sections present all of the copy and move methods to you.

Using the Ribbon

The Clipboard group at the far left end of the Ribbon holds the tools that give you one way to accomplish copying or moving text with the mouse. Here's how to do it:

1. Select the text to copy or move.
2. In the Clipboard group of the Home tab, click the Copy button to duplicate the selection, or the Cut button to remove it. Refer to Figure 8.1. The Paste button isn't available until you cut or copy at least one selection.

   FIGURE 8.1

   The Clipboard group enables you to copy, cut, and paste text with the mouse.

   

3. Use the method of your choice to move the insertion point to the destination location where you'd like to place the copied or cut text. Keep in mind that this destination location can be another Word file, another Office file, or a file or location in another program that accepts pasted content. If you need to, use the taskbar to switch between documents and apps to go to the paste destination.
4. In the Clipboard group of the Home tab, click the Paste button. The text appears at the insertion point, and a Paste Options button appears at the bottom right, as shown in Figure 8.2. You can ignore the button or choose an option from it. The “Using Paste Options” later in this chapter explains what paste options are available and how they work.

FIGURE 8.2

The pasted text appears at the new location.

Using the keyboard

Keyboard shortcuts provide perhaps the most familiar method for copying, cutting, and pasting. Word uses the keyboard shortcuts for these actions, which have been available in Windows and Windows apps for well beyond a decade. When you use the keyboard shortcuts to copy or move selected text, follow the same process just outlined for the Ribbon, but use these keystrokes instead of the commands:

• Copy: Ctrl+C
• Cut: Ctrl+X
• Paste: Ctrl+V

Using non-Clipboard methods

Suppose you have carefully assembled 24 items on the Office Clipboard that you still need to paste in various locations, but you encounter another text selection, graphic, or other object you need to copy or move. These next few methods—dragging and dropping, F2, and the Spike—enable you to copy and move selections without using the Clipboard.

Dragging and dropping

You probably already knew about drag-and-drop, but you might not have realized that it doesn't involve the Clipboard. Select what you want copied (text, graphics, whatever) or moved. Then, to move the selection elsewhere, simply drag it to the desired location.

To copy the selection to a second location, press and hold the Ctrl key while dragging it to the desired spot. As shown in Figure 8.3, a plus sign appears with the mouse pointer, signifying that the action will copy rather than move the selection.

FIGURE 8.3

Press and hold Ctrl while dragging a selection to copy rather than move the text, as indicated by the + beside the mouse pointer.

Note that when you're dragging text from Word to another program, such as Internet Explorer, Word automatically copies, rather than moves, the text. For example, you can copy a phrase or a name from Word into the Google (or other) Search text field in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or another browser. You do not need to press Ctrl in this case.

The F2 factor

Another unfamiliar copy and move method dates back to Word for DOS. Using the mouse or keyboard, select the text or other items you want moved or copied. To move the selection elsewhere, press F2. To copy it, press Shift+F2. The left end of the status bar now prompts, “Move to where?” or “Copy to where?” as shown in Figure 8.4.

FIGURE 8.4

Select text and press F2 or Shift+F2, and Word prompts you for a destination for the selection.

Next, using any method you choose, move the insertion point to where you want to place the selection (or select the text or other items you want the current selection to replace). Then press Enter.

The Spike

Word offers another way to move text without the Clipboard called the Spike. Use the Spike to collect selections of text using a special keyboard shortcut. Word puts each Spiked item into a separate paragraph. This can be useful if you plan to use the Spike to create a list. It's not so useful if you want to insert Spiked items within an existing paragraph.

Word's Spike collects deletions in FIFO (first in, first out) order, with the oldest Spiked deletion at the bottom and the most recent deletion at the top. Unlike the Office Clipboard, however, Word's Spike won't let you paste or remove one item at a time—it's all or nothing. An example instance when you might want to use the Spike is if you need to create a summary list at the end of a long document. You could add all the document headings to the Spike (immediately using Undo after using the Spike keyboard shortcut, which also happens to delete the section), empty them from the Spike at the end of the document, and then reformat them as a bulleted list.

The Spike is actually a special AutoText entry that Word creates for you on demand. (An AutoText entry is a stored text item that you save so that you can insert it wherever needed; Chapter 12, “Getting Smart with Text: Building Blocks, Quick Parts, Actions (Tags), and More” covers working with AutoText entries.) To use it, select the text you want to collect and press Ctrl+F3; this deletes the text, copying it to an AutoText entry named Spike. If you want to copy text rather than move it, immediately press Ctrl+Z (Undo). This restores the deleted text, but does not affect the copy of it already stored in the Spike. Continue collecting selections in this way.

When you're ready to use the contents of the Spike, move to the destination location, and then:

• To insert the contents of the Spike and empty (delete) it at the same time, press Ctrl+Shift+F3.
• To simply use the Spike contents, type Spike as shown in Figure 8.5 and press Enter or F3.

FIGURE 8.5

When you use the Spike AutoText entry, the initial entries in the list of items stored in the Spike appear in a ScreenTip.

Recall that all but the topmost of the Office Clipboard's items are lost when Office is closed. The Spike, because it is an AutoText entry, resides with your Building Blocks, another type of saved text that you can insert where needed. (Chapter 12 also provides more detail about using Building Blocks.) As long as you don't use the Ctrl+Shift+F3 insertion method, the Spike continues to live on when you close Word, reboot Windows, and so on. Long live the Spike!

Working with heading styles and document organization

Word 2013 includes a feature where you can work with the document outline within Print Layout, Web Layout, and Read Mode views as long as you've applied the built-in heading styles in the document. As shown in Figure 8.6, when you click within a styled heading paragraph, a triangle appears to the left of the heading name. Click a gray down-pointing triangle to collapse the heading's text. Click a white right-pointing triangle to expand the heading's text.

FIGURE 8.6

Expand and collapse document text below heading paragraphs in Print Layout view.

Collapsing the heading text makes it easier to reorganize the document via the various copy and move methods. For example, you can cut and paste a heading to move it and all the text collapsed under it. When you paste the heading into a new position, the Paste Options button appears as shown in Figure 8.7 so that you can decide how to handle the formatting of the pasted text. You can later click the white triangle to redisplay the collapsed text under the heading. If you drag and drop the heading, its text expands below the heading, along with the Paste Options button.

FIGURE 8.7

The collapsed text travels along with the heading you copy or move.

Managing Pasting Options

You've so far seen a couple of instances of the Paste Options button appearing when you paste a selection you've cut or copied. You can either choose Paste Options after completing a paste using that button, or you can choose Paste Options during the process of pasting. If you have a favorite Paste Options choice, you can set it as the default method rather than having to specify what you want each time.

You also can use the Paste Special command from the Paste menu to paste a selection with other types of formatting not offered in Paste Options. One of those choices is to paste text as a picture, a process this section illustrates for you. You learn about Paste Options and Paste Special next.

Using Paste Options

You've already seen how pasting displays a Paste Options button. Clicking it displays the Paste Options menu shown in Figure 8.8. You can click one of the three buttons on the Paste Options menu to control how Word handles the formatting of the pasted text. Each of these buttons also has a shortcut key, listed in the button ScreenTip, that you can press to select it. From left to right on the menu, the Paste Options buttons are:

• Keep Source Formatting (K): This option leaves the original formatting applied.
• Merge Formatting (M): This option examines the formatting in the destination and reformats the pasted text to match.
• Keep Text Only (T): This option strips all extra formatting from the text and pastes it as text with the Normal style.

FIGURE 8.8

Click the Paste Options button after pasting a selection to reveal the choices in this menu.

If the selection you are pasting came from another file or application or is an object rather than text, you may see additional Paste Options, such as Use Destination Styles (S) or Use Destination Theme (H). Paste Options works with Live Preview, so if you'd like to see the impact of a certain Paste Options choice, move the mouse pointer over it to see a preview of how the pasted text or object would look with that choice applied. Then click the choice that looks the way you want.

The other way you can apply a Paste Options choice is to do it directly while pasting to the destination location at the insertion point. The bottom of the Paste button in the Clipboard group of the Home tab has a down arrow you can click to open a menu. That menu, shown in Figure 8.9, includes the same choices you saw in the Paste Options button menu in Figure 8.8. As for the Paste Options button, the choices on this menu work with Live Preview, so you can move the mouse pointer over the various buttons to preview the paste material's appearance before clicking to finish the paste.

FIGURE 8.9

Click the Paste button down arrow and then click a Paste Option to paste and format text in one step.

Setting the default paste method

In Figure 8.8, the left Paste Options button, Keep Source Formatting, is selected. That is the default Paste Option in Word 2013. You can change the default paste method. If you click Set Default Paste in the menus shown in Figure 8.8 or Figure 8.9, Word opens File Options Advanced; from there you can scroll down to the Cut, copy, and paste section shown in Figure 8.10. You can set the default for Pasting within the same document or Pasting between documents to Keep Source Formatting (Default), Merge Formatting, or Keep Text Only. If needed, you also can change the defaults if there's a style conflict or if you're pasting from another program. After making your choices, click OK.

FIGURE 8.10

Set default Paste Options for pasting within and between documents.

Paste Special

The Paste button drop-down menu also includes a Paste Special option, shown in Figure 8.9. Clicking Paste Special opens the Paste Special dialog box with options for converting the format of the Pasted item, as shown in Figure 8.11.

FIGURE 8.11

Use Paste Special to determine whether to convert the format of the pasted item.

In the As list, click the format you want to use to paste the selection at the insertion point. The Paste link option to the left of the As list, when available, creates an OLE bookmark around the selected text or object and inserts a LINK field code with a reference to the document name and bookmark where the source is located. You'll learn more about the LINK field in Chapter 23, “Automating Document Content with Fields.” Bookmarks are covered in Chapter 19, “Enhancing Navigation with Bookmarks, Hyperlinks, and Cross References.”

If the source is ever deleted or otherwise unavailable when the document that contains the link is updated, Word will indicate that the source cannot be found, and the update will fail. This, of course, is a lot better than replacing the displayed item with an error message.

Copying and pasting a picture of text

While the Clipboard won't perform OCR (optical character recognition) for you, it will let you do the opposite—paste a picture of your text. This can be useful for a variety of reasons, such as when you want something that looks like text but can be manipulated as a graphic.

To paste a “snapshot” of text (which can include graphics, by the way), follow these steps:

1. Select the target text in the document and copy it to the Clipboard.
2. Move to the destination, click the Paste button down arrow in the Clipboard group of the Home tab, and choose Paste Special (refer to Figure 8.9).
3. In the As list, click Picture (Enhanced Metafile). Sometimes one works but not the other, or vice versa. Use whichever result works or looks best. Note, however, that the picture is limited to one page. If the text spans multiple pages, anything beyond one page will be truncated.
4. If you want to link the pasted picture to its source text, click the Paste link option.
5. Click OK. Figure 8.12 shows how a section of text looks when pasted as a picture in a new document. Note the Picture Tools Format contextual tab appears on the Ribbon so that you can format the pasted picture.

FIGURE 8.12

When you paste a text selection as a picture, you can use Picture Tools to format it.

Using the Clipboard Pane

The Office Clipboard remains effectively dormant unless you display the Clipboard pane or turn on the Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard option. To open the Clipboard pane, click the dialog box launcher in the Clipboard group of the Home tab. If you want to have the Clipboard pane store multiple items even when it's not displayed, click the Options button at the bottom of the pane, and then click to check Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard, shown in Figure 8.13; from that point, you can close the Clipboard pane, and it (the Office Clipboard) will store multiple copied or cut items.

FIGURE 8.13

You can set up the Office Clipboard to gather copied and cut selections without appearing onscreen.

The complete Options settings for the Office Clipboard and its Clipboard pane are:

• Show Office Clipboard Automatically: Automatically displays the Office Clipboard when you copy items using the mouse, keyboard, or Ribbon tools.
• Show Office Clipboard When Ctrl+C Pressed Twice: Automatically displays the Office Clipboard when Ctrl+C is pressed twice (and sometimes just once) while a copyable item is selected.
• Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard: Automatically adds items to the Office Clipboard even if the Clipboard is not displayed.
• Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar: Shows the Office Clipboard icon in the notification area of the Windows taskbar when the Office Clipboard is active; the icon may be hidden, so to display it, use the taskbar's Show hidden icons button.
• Show Status Near Taskbar When Copying: Displays a message near the Windows notification area when you copy or cut items to the Office Clipboard.

While the second option indicates that two presses of Ctrl+C causes the Clipboard pane to appear, that's not always the case. If no text is selected, the Clipboard won't appear. If text is selected, sometimes just a single press of Ctrl+C will cause the Clipboard to show.

Pasting from the Clipboard pane

When the Clipboard pane is open, you can paste any of its (up to 24) items into the current document. The Office Clipboard can hold all kinds of cut or copied objects—graphics, text, spreadsheet cells or ranges, PowerPoint slides, Word documents, sounds, and more. The only limit on the size of any given item you can store on the Clipboard are your computer's RAM and other resources.

To paste the entire contents of the Clipboard pane, move the insertion point to or select where you want the pasted item(s) to go, and choose Paste All at the top of the task pane (Figure 8.14).

To paste a single item from the Clipboard pane:

1. Move the insertion point to the destination location where you want the pasted item(s) to go.
2. Click the item to paste in the Clipboard pane. You can paste from any location in the queue. Unlike with Ctrl+V or the Paste tool, you are not limited to the item at the top of the list.

Keep in mind that the Office Clipboard is not fully integrated into Windows itself. Each new copy or cut is added to the Office Clipboard, regardless of the program in which the copy or cut is performed. You can only paste from the Office Clipboard in Office programs (and not all of those). As indicated, non-Office programs such as Notepad and Internet Explorer, for example, can access only the “top” item.

FIGURE 8.14

Click Paste All to paste all of the Clipboard pane items at the insertion point, or click an individual item to paste it alone.

Removing items from the Clipboard pane

Pasting from the Clipboard pane does not affect the queue itself. Copying or cutting more selections will cause items to scroll off the list. If you want to remove an unwanted item from the Clipboard pane, right-click the item and choose Delete. Any items below that one in the list move up. If the most recent Copy or Cut caused a former 24th item to be removed from the list, deleting one above it will not restore that item. The Clipboard's limit really is 24 items—there is no invisible storage location for items 25 and beyond.

To empty the Clipboard pane, click Clear All at the top of the pane. (Refer to Figure 8.14.) Another way to empty the Clipboard is to close all Office programs. Office 2013 will not remember the Clipboard's items, except for the top one, after all Office programs are closed. The good news, at least for any individual Windows session, is that as long as at least one Office 2013 program remains running (such as Outlook, which many users keep open so they can receive email and calendar alerts), the Clipboard pane's contents remain intact. After all Office programs are closed, however, the Office Clipboard's contents are lost.

System tray icon and notification

The Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar option shown in Figure 8.13 enables you to know that the Office Clipboard is active, even when it's not displayed. When this option is checked, you can click the Show hidden icons button in the Windows notifications area at the right end of the taskbar to see the menu shown in Figure 8.15.

FIGURE 8.15

Point to the Office Clipboard icon to see how many items are on the Clipboard or right-click for options.

Right-click the notification icon to see three self-explanatory commands: Show Office Clipboard, Clear All, and Stop Collecting. Pointing to Options at the bottom of the shortcut menu displays the same choices described in the list at the beginning of the “Using the Clipboard Pane” section.

Summary

In this chapter you've learned about the relationship between the Windows Clipboard and the Office Clipboard. You've learned how to control when the Clipboard appears, as well as how to prevent it from appearing at all. You should now know how to do the following:

• Copy or move text with the tools in the Clipboard group of the Home tab or shortcut keys
• Use methods that bypass the Office Clipboard, including drag-and-drop, F2, and the Spike
• Collapse headings with heading styles applied to rearrange sections of the document more quickly
• Use the Paste Options to control the formatting of pasted text, or use Paste Special to convert the pasted object
• Accumulate items on the Office Clipboard without its being visible
• Paste individual items from the Office Clipboard, or paste its entire contents in one fell swoop
• Use the Office Clipboard notification icon