Dwight Watt - Newspaper Article #323 1/27/2016


Question: What is copy and paste?

Answer:

Copy and paste is the ability to put information that is on one location (text or pictures) and put on another location without having to type in the information. For instance you see a paragraph on a web page and want to put it exactly in a document you are typing in Word you can use cop and paste. Another example would be when I have a list of name s and want to put some in a different document with out typing them (and making mistakes in typing) I could copy and paste each.

The term comes from before we did our typing on computers and were working directly on paper. You could make a copy of document and cut out the part you wanted to put in new and paste or glue that at appropriate spot in new document.

There are two main ways to copy and paste. The first uses the GUI (graphical) approach and the second uses specialty key combinations. Both do the same thing.

The first way is to highlight the material you want to copy (text or picture) and then hover with the mouse over the material (leaving it selected) and do a right click on the mouse and choose Copy. That places it on the clipboard (a hidden spot it keeps cut and copy information, but only one thing at a time). Then go in the document you want to put it in. Click on the spot where you want it inserted and right click the mouse and choose Paste and an exact copy of the material will appear.

The second way is to highlight the material you want to copy (text or picture) and then press and hold the CTRL key and press the c key (leaving it selected). That places it on the clipboard (a hidden spot it keeps cut and copy information, but only one thing at a time). Then go in the document you want to put it in. Click on the spot where you want it inserted and press the CTRL key and hold and press the v key and an exact copy of the material will appear.

You can do the first step from the firast way and second step from the second way or vice versa also.

If when you try the first way you do not get option to Copy in the right click menu try the second. Some programs block the right click menu or parts of it. Also sometimes you have to do CTRL+c a couple times for it to put on clipboard, however you cannot tell that until try to paste.