It’s easy to copy material from a document that was created in one program to a document that was created in another program. The way you insert the material depends on what it is. If it’s similar to and compatible with the receiving document—some text that’s being copied into a WordPad document, for example—you can usually insert it as is and can edit it in the receiving document’s program. If the item is dissimilar—a sound clip, say, inserted into a WordPad document—either it’s encapsulated (isolated) as an object and can be edited in the originating program only, or you simply are not able to paste that item into your document.

Copy and Insert Material

1. In the source document, select the material you want to copy.

2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu (or press Ctlr+C). Windows places copied items on the Windows Clipboard. (You can copy only one item at a time, so always paste the Clipboard contents into your document before you copy anything else, or you’ll lose whatever was on the Clipboard.)

3. Switch to the destination document.

4. Click where you want to insert the material.

5. Click the Paste button, choose Paste from the Edit menu, or press Ctrl+V.

Tip

Some programs—those that are part of Microsoft Office, for example—have their own Clipboard, which allows you to store and retrieve multiple copied items from Office programs.

Tip

To insert the copied material in a different format, or as an icon for an online document, choose Paste Special from the Edit menu (provided the command is available on the menu) instead of choosing the Paste command.