How to Copy and Paste something on the Computer
Selecting things to cut or copy
Before you can shuttle pieces of information to new places, you have to tell Windows exactly what you want to grab. The easiest way to tell it is to select the information with a mouse. In most cases, selecting involves one swift trick with the mouse, which then highlights whatever you’ve selected.
To select text in a document, website, or spreadsheet: Put the mouse arrow or cursor at the beginning of the information you want and hold down the mouse button. Then move the mouse to the end of the information and release the button. That’s it! That action selects all the stuff lying between where you clicked and released.
A. Copying Text
So here's what you do to copy text:
1. Start by opening a new Word document. You'll use this as your practice sheet for learning to copy & paste.
2. Highlight a bit of the text in this tutorial by clicking and dragging over it with your mouse.
3. Hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and type C (for Copy). This copies the information into the Clipboard of your computer. This is not something you can see; it's just part of your computer's memory.
4. Now click your mouse within your Word document.
5. Hold Ctrl again and type V (for Paste).
The text should now appear in the document!
Why V for Paste?
V was chosen for Paste, because it's reminiscent of the proofreaders' caret -- ^.
B. Copying an Image
Now copy one of the images in this tutorial to your document.
1. Select the image and Copy it to your clipboard:
You can do this in one of two ways:
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Click-drag over it, as you did with the text above and then Ctrl-C
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Or you can Right-Click the image and choose Copy Image.
2. Go to where you want the image (Your Word document will do for now) and click.
3. Ctrl-V to paste. There it is!
Copy and Paste Practice
So let’s practice now. Below are two boxes. I want you to take the text from the left box and put the text in the right box. Below are directions again for you to follow.
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Put your cursor in the bottom box on the left before the word “Select” & click once.
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Hold down the left mouse button* and scroll across a word (it will turn black or blue) then release mouse button.
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Click on EDIT on the toolbar (top left), and then click on COPY in the drop-down menu.
(*If you do not have an Edit button or toolbar, hold down the CTRL key and then click C to Copy. You have to do both at the same time. Now you copied it.)
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Next, move the mouse cursor to bottom box on the right, & click inside it once. You will see a line inside it blinking. This means that you are ready to use it.
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Click on EDIT on the toolbar (top left), and then click on PASTE in the drop-down menu. (*If you do not have the Edit button or toolbar, then hold down the CTRL key then click V to Paste or put the text in the new location. You should now see the text in the box on the right.)
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Repeat the steps until you have the complete sentence on the left box exactly the same as in the box on the right.
Select this text, copy it and paste it into a word document for practice.
Review: A Faster Method using Keyboard Shortcuts
Remember, copying and pasting with your mouse are a couple quick steps, but using keyboard shortcuts can really save you a lot of time.
Select your items to copy as mentioned above. To select all items on a page or folder, you can use the CTRL+A or Command + A shortcut: hold down the CTRL button (on Windows) or Command key (on Mac) then hit the A key.
Remember then hit these keys together to copy and paste them:
Using Windows: Hold down the CTRL key then click
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C to copy
or -
V to paste
Using a Mac: Hold down the Command key (⌘). Then, as with Windows, click:
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C to copy
or -
V to paste
Note: If all the text is in a row: Click the first item in the bunch, hold down the Shift key, and then select the last item (one click from the mouse). Windows highlights the first and last items as well as everything in between. Then you can just copy it. This may be easier than dragging the mouse across all of the text to select it.
WARNING:
Be careful after you highlight a bunch of text. If you accidentally press one of the keys like the K key, for example, the program replaces your highlighted text with the letter k. To reverse this, choose Undo from the program’s Edit menu (or press Ctrl and Z at the same time, which is the keyboard shortcut for Undo).