Deleting Text

Press Delete to erase a single character to the right of the insertion point. Any characters to the right of the deleted character shift left to close the gap. You can also press Delete to delete all your selected text. Furthermore, you can press Backspace to erase text characters to the left of the insertion point.

Note

Here's a tip that even advanced Word gurus often forget: Ctrl+Backspace erases the word to the left of your insertion point, and Ctrl+Del erases the word to the right of your insertion point.

Copying, Cutting, and Pasting

After you select text, you can copy or cut (move) that text to a different location. One of the most beneficial features that propelled word processors into the spotlight in the 1980s was their capability to copy and move text. In the medieval days (before 1980), people had to use scissors and glue to cut and paste. Now, your hands stay clean.

Windows utilizes the clipboard concept to hold text that you want to cut, copy, or move, and Office takes the concept of the clipboard further with the Office Clipboard. The Office Clipboard is where text resides during a copy, cut, or paste operation. It shows itself in Office as a task pane. Select View, Task Pane, and if one of the non-clipboard task panes appears, click the arrow toward the top of the task pane and select Clipboard to display the Office Clipboard contents. The Office Clipboard can hold 24 selected items (text, graphics, hyperlinks, or any other kind of Office data), and a special Clipboard task pane automatically appears as you select text (see Figure 2.5). If you don't want to see the task pane when you use the Office Clipboard, click the task pane's Options button and select Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard. You can always redisplay the task pane by selecting from the View menu.

Figure 2.5 The Clipboard task pane displays items you've cut or copied.

To copy text or other document elements such as graphics from one place to another, first select the item. Next, copy the selected text to the Office Clipboard by selecting Edit, Copy. (You can also press Ctrl+C or click the Copy button.) Then, paste the Office Clipboard contents in their new location by selecting Edit, Paste. (Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+V or click the Paste button.) You can paste the same text again and again wherever you want it to appear. If you've copied several items to the Office Clipboard (by performing a copy operation more than once during the current editing session), click where the pasted item is to appear in your document and then click the item in the Office Clipboard task pane.

When you paste an item into your document, a small Paste Options button (similar to the one on the Paste toolbar button) appears under the pasted text. You can ignore the button by continuing with your typing and the icon goes away. But if you click on the Paste button's drop-down list arrow, Word displays several formatting options that control the way your text pastes into the document.

When you cut text from your document (select Edit, Cut; click the Cut toolbar button; or press Ctrl+X), Word erases the text from your document and sends it to the Office Clipboard so you can paste the Office Clipboard contents elsewhere. In effect, cutting and pasting moves the text. As with copying text, you don't have to paste the most recent item you've copied to the Clipboard if you've copied multiple items. Simply click the item you want to paste in the Office Clipboard task pane. You can paste the same item into several different locations.

Note

You can also move and copy by using your mouse. This technique is called drag and drop. To use this method to move text, select the text to move and hold the mouse button while dragging the text to its new location. To copy (instead of move) with your mouse, press and hold Ctrl before you click and then drag the selected text. Word indicates that you are copying by adding a small plus sign to the mouse pointer while you are performing the operation.