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About this lesson
Cut, copy and paste is an essential skill to help minimize re-typing text.
Exercise files
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Basic Cut Copy Paste - EXERCISE.docx29.4 KB Basic Cut Copy Paste - Exercise Solution.docx
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Quick reference
Basic Cut, Copy, Paste
An essential computer skill, cut/copy/paste can help to minimize re-typing text.
When to use
Whenever words or paragraphs are repeated, use copy/paste. And whenever they need to be moved, use cut/paste.
Instructions
To Copy:
- Select the word(s) with a click and drag or a double/triple click.
- Choose Copy (3 ways: use the tool on the home ribbon, use right-click “copy”, or use “Ctrl-C” on the keyboard.)
- Place the insertion point where you want the copied text to land.
- Choose Paste (3 ways: use the tool on the home ribbon, use right-click “paste”, or use “Ctrl-V” on the keyboard.)
To Cut:
- Select the word(s) with a click and drag or a double/triple click.
- Choose Cut (3 ways: use the tool on the home ribbon, use right-click “cut”, or use “Ctrl-X” on the keyboard.)
- Place the insertion point where you want the cut text to land.
- Choose Paste (3 ways: use the tool on the home ribbon, use right-click “paste”, or use “Ctrl-V” on the keyboard.)
Tip: If using the right mouse button to paste, and you get the 4 tiny clipboards that give you Paste Options, take the time to hover your mouse over those options and preview how your text behaves.
- Keep Source Formatting will retain all color, fonts, and alignment that were copied along with the text.
- Merge Formatting will blend the two styles together.
- Picture will create a graphic out of the pasted text and you will be unable to edit it.
- Keep Text Only is a valuable tool if you want the copied text to be cleaned of all formatting.
- 00:04 This is a lesson about cut, copy, paste.
- 00:07 This is vital that you learn this.
- 00:10 Every time you're on a computer in Word or any program for that matter,
- 00:14 you're going to be using cut, copy, paste.
- 00:16 So let's get a good handle on it.
- 00:18 All right, first of all, where are the buttons located?
- 00:21 On the Home ribbon, we have the Paste button, we have a little pair of scissors,
- 00:25 we have a little double piece of paper, and then the paint format,
- 00:29 which is a completely different lesson.
- 00:32 But what do you need to know is two of these are gray because nothing is
- 00:35 selected yet.
- 00:36 So let's go ahead and open up the exercise file, if you haven't already, and
- 00:40 let's just do what the instructions say.
- 00:43 We're going to select this blue paragraph.
- 00:44 I can click into it, triple-click to select it, one, two, three, and
- 00:49 it says to copy this paragraph pasted above the original black one.
- 00:53 All right, so how am I going to copy it?
- 00:56 Well, I can come up to the Home ribbon, and notice these buttons are now lit up.
- 01:01 The double twin piece of paper is my copy.
- 01:04 I can click that.
- 01:04 Notice the tooltip says Ctrl+C, that would be a keyboard command.
- 01:08 And the right-click on top of the paragraph itself, right-click,
- 01:12 gives me the same option to copy.
- 01:15 So you see, it's your personal preference.
- 01:18 I'll go ahead and click this Copy, since I already hit my right-click, copy it.
- 01:22 Notice a copy stays right where it is the original stays there.
- 01:27 Well, I'm going to click in front of the black paragraph, hitting Enter to push it
- 01:31 down once, arrowing up for the blank spot, and now, I'm going to paste it.
- 01:36 I could right-click and paste, but
- 01:37 I really do want to use the Paste button right over here on the Home ribbon.
- 01:41 And notice the tooltip Ctrl+V, as in Victor.
- 01:45 So I'll go ahead and click this button, there we are.
- 01:48 Now, we have two sets of those, the one I just pasted and the original one.
- 01:52 All right, let's move down and do the green one.
- 01:54 The green paragraph says we're going to cut this one, and
- 01:57 we're going to paste it above the black original paragraph.
- 02:01 So I'm going to triple-click to select it, one, two, three.
- 02:04 I can right-click to cut it.
- 02:07 I can move my mouse up here and hit Scissors or notice a tooltip says Ctrl+X.
- 02:12 I'm going to do that one.
- 02:14 Moving my mouse down here onto the paragraph, on my keyboard,
- 02:17 you can't see me do this, but I'm holding Ctrl+ tap the X and it vanished.
- 02:22 That is a difference between copy and cut.
- 02:25 Copy leaves the original, cut removes it.
- 02:29 It's kind of on this imaginary clipboard waiting for me to paste it somewhere.
- 02:33 I'm going to click above this black paragraph, and I'm going to paste.
- 02:37 This time, I'll use Ctrl+V, as in Victor, to paste it.
- 02:41 Ctrl+V on my keyboard, there we have it.
- 02:45 All right, now to show you some extra magic.
- 02:47 On the orange paragraph, we're going to paste it below the last original paragraph
- 02:51 of black text and we're going to choose Merge Formatting.
- 02:54 Well, what is that?
- 02:55 Hold the phone, wait till you see this.
- 02:57 I'm going to triple-click, one, two, three.
- 02:59 I am going to copy this, Ctrl+C to copy.
- 03:04 Clicking under the black one, but see when I paste it, I don't want it to land in
- 03:08 there as orange, making more work for myself to turn it to black.
- 03:13 So I'm going to right-click this time.
- 03:15 And notice the Paste Options, I have four little clipboards here.
- 03:19 So I float my mouse, I keep source formatting, and
- 03:21 you can see what's going to happen.
- 03:23 It's going to put the orange text.
- 03:25 The next one says Merge Formatting, it's going to drop it as black text.
- 03:29 The next one, Picture, I don't want to drop it as a picture.
- 03:33 It's going to be this orange picture that won't be editable.
- 03:36 And the last one will actually keep text only and drop all formatting from it.
- 03:42 It won't bring in any formats at all.
- 03:44 I think I'm just going to go with that second one, the merge formatting, okay?
- 03:47 So it's fancy text, I want it to merge it in.
- 03:50 So I'll go ahead and click that one, and it dropped it right in there.
- 03:53 Do those same features reside on the ribbon?
- 03:56 Well, let's check it out.
- 03:57 On the Paste button, I have a drop-down arrow with those same buttons,
- 04:03 Keep Source, Merge, Picture, and Text.
- 04:06 All right, it is a great time to practice those, and
- 04:09 we'll see you in the next video.
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