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Cut, copy and paste is an essential skill to help minimize re-typing text.

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.

  1. Keep Source Formatting will retain all color, fonts, and alignment that were copied along with the text.
  2. Merge Formatting will blend the two styles together.
  3. Picture will create a graphic out of the pasted text and you will be unable to edit it.
  4. Keep Text Only is a valuable tool if you want the copied text to be cleaned of all formatting.
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  • 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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