This essay is best suited for use on a laptop. You can read on a mobile phone, but doing select/ cut/ copy/ paste is done differently on a mobile phone or tablet. (Those devices do offer these excellent tools.)
Some jobs on the computer can be done more quickly, and more accurately if you have certain skills.
Rather annoyingly, they are hard to explain... but once you get the hang of them, they are easy to use.
I use them all the time, across all of my computer work. In fact I used them just now.
The previous paragraph started life as...
They are easy to use, but rather annoyingly are hard to explain.
Now- to change that paragraph, I could simply have deleted everything and written the alternate form "from scratch".
But with the skills this essay is about, it was easy to rearrange it with minimal deleting and retyping.
I cut the "rather annoyingly are hard to explain" out from the end, but did it in a way that meant that I could "paste" it in at the start of the sentence with just a single keystroke. (And I've used almost the same trick just now to "re-type" the bit I moved.
For what comes next, it would be good if your web browser wasn't filling the whole screen.
Alongside it, open a window with an empty text document standing by, ready to accept some text.
The techniques this essay tries to explain can be used within and between many applications... but for our exercises a text document will be best.
You can use humble Notepad or some fancy word processor. I use the free for sensible use Textpad extensively, if you want a good text editor. (I do most of my work with it, including all of my HTML authoring.)
Let's start with the names for things.
Use your mouse, and click on the second word in this sentence- "your".
Hold your "Shift" key down for a moment. Don't release it until I say to.
Press your "up arrow" key a few times.
Now release the shift key.("Shift lock" will not do what I want here, by the way.)
Some of the text on your screen should now look different! What you have done is called selecting the text. The method we used is just one of many. We'll come back to "selecting" later.
Now hold down either one of your "Control" keys. Like the "Shift" keys, there's usually two of them, often labeled "Ctrl", which is what I will call them from now on.
Press and release the "c" key. Then release the ctrl key. You shouldn't see anything "happen"! .... yet. (^_^)
The "Control" keys are like the shift keys in many ways...
Normally, you press one down, hold it down, press another key, and then release the ctrl key... just as you use the shift keys to get an UPPERCASE letter.
Doing that with the S key often Saves whatever document you are working on.
Instead of saying all that I did a moment ago when I want to speak of using the ctrl key with the S key, I will just say "Do ctrl-s".
I told you it was hard to explain. It gets better now that we've made a start on "selecting", and finished what "do ctrl-x" means.
So far, you've selected some text in this document, and done ctrl-c. And you should have an empty text editor (or word processor) document open alongside the web-browser you are using to read this.
Use you mouse to click somewhere on the empty text document.
Do ctrl-v.
Wow! (I hope!)
A copy of the text that was selected when you did ctrl-c should have instantly appeared in the text document. We call that instant appearing "pasting".
(If it didn't, I'm sorry. It "should have"! I'm afraid I'm going to suggest that you just go up to the top of the page, and try again. It's not hard to get it right, but the process is not forgiving of "small" mistakes.)
When you did the ctrl-c, any selected text was copied to the clipboard.
The clipboard is a bit of the computer's memory which can temporarily store bits of stuff. People don't usually do it, but there are ways to see what's on the clipboard at any given moment.
If you've copied some stuff to the clipboard, and subsequently copy some different stuff, the new copy overwrites whatever was previously on the clipboard.
If you haven't done a new copy (to the clipboard (ctrl-c) since doing your paste (ctrl-v) you can do more pastes, to duplicate some text to where ever you want it.
Well...almost all. But that covers the main elements of using the clipboard to copy/ paste things.
If you want to move something from where it is to a new place...
Select it
Do ctrl-x
...that will duplicate the selected material on the clipboard and delete the selected material from the place it was copied from. (If you have the power to delete from the source.)
This is called "cutting".
(I said "duplicate" instead of the more natural "copy" because, in this context, "copy" implies "copy without disturbing the original".)
You won't be able to cut things from the web page you are reading right now, but switch over to the text document, select some text, do ctrl-x, and it should "disappear". Try it!
And how can you check to see if it went to the clipboard? Press ctrl-v! That should paste back what you cut. If you click on a different part of the document before doing the ctrl-, the text will reappear in the new location. (That's how I rearranged the sentence at the start of this essay.)
A detail... sometimes when you copy something "complicated", it "goes wrong" when you try to paste it. In such cases, try doing shift-ctrl-v. (Hold down shift or ctrl. Keep it down. Also hold down the other one (shift or ctrl) THEN press V, THEN release shift of ctrl!)
There are many ways to select things, to copy, cut and paste.
You can select stuff by "dragging" your mouse across it.
To select this way, put your mouse pointer at a corner of the area you want to select.
Press the left-hand mouse button down, and keep it down.
Move the mouse across the area you want to select to the corner opposite the one you started in.
The appearance of the area you are selecting should change as you do this.
When you've selected what you want, release the mouse button. (If the selection hasn't come out as you wish, just start again. The area you selected first will instantly go back to how it was.)
It can be annoyingly inconsistent, but sometimes double clicking or triple clicking on things will select. One may give different results to the other.
If you've selected some stuff, and put the mouse pointer anywhere in the selected stuff, and right-click, a menu should appear.
Another way to copy, cut or paste is usually present if you have the program's menu bar showing. Click on the "Edit" item, and you should find copy, cut and paste there.
If you right-click on an image, you will often find a "copy" option is available.
Click that. You'll see nothing happen, but the image may well be on the clipboard. Go to a program that can display images. This includes many word processors. Right-click, choose paste.
You will often be able to change the size of the image when it has been pasted.
If something "goes wrong", often ctrl-z will get you back to where you were before the unintended change. (^_^)
If you found this of interest, please mention it in forums, give it a Facebook "like", or whatever. If you want more of this stuff, help!? There's not much point in me writing these things if no one feels they are of any use, is there? I'm not telepathic. Encouragement will be appreciated! Contact details below.
Search across several of my sites at once with a Google search button.
Or...
Or...
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Unlike the clever Google search engine, this one merely looks for the words you type, so....
* Spell them properly.
* Don't bother with "How do I get rich?" That will merely return pages with "how", "do", "I"....
Please also note that I have three other sites, and that this search will not include them. They have their own search buttons.
It's both! Flat-Earth-Academy.com is something I started years ago. For a variety of reasons, I can't offer you httpS:// access there. (As you are not asked to input any information, that's moot, but it "worries" search engines.) So I'm moving to my new, all singing, and will do the httpS:// dance site, "WYWTK.com", and Flat-Earth-Academy is gradually acquiring pages there. (Well, HERE, as what you are reading is one of my "wywtk/fea" pages.)
Why "WYWTK"? It comes from "What You Want To Know".
How to email or write this page's editor, Tom Boyd. If you write, please cite page's URL: wywtk.com/fea/comp/select-cut-copy-paste.htm... or at least the last part of that!
Page has been tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. It passes in some important ways, but still needs work to fully meet HTML 5 expectations. (Copy your page's URL to your clipboard before clicking on the icon, so you can easily paste it into the validator when it has loaded.)-->
AND it has been tested with...
Why is there a script or hidden graphic on this page? I have my web-traffic monitored for me by eXTReMe tracker. They offer a free tracker. If you want to try one, check out their site. Neither my webpages nor my programs incorporate spyware, but if the page has Google tools, they also involve scripts. Why do I mention the scripts? Be sure you know all you need to about spyware.
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