
Unfortunately, not all apps have such a command, even when it might be useful. Some apps might call it Paste Text Only or Paste Without Formatting. In most apps, the command to paste text without any additional formatting is Edit > Paste and Match Style (Command-Option-Shift-V). But let’s say you copy some text from a Web page and paste it into Apple Mail - it will transfer the typeface, text color, and even background color! All this style info can be useful in some cases, but most of the time, you probably just want the text to take on the look of the text around it, or to use the app’s default style. You won’t have any problems when copying from or pasting into a plain-text editor like BBEdit.
Where is the clipboard mac os x mac#
Every Mac user should memorize these commands’ keyboard shortcuts - invoking them should be as second-nature as typing:Ĭopying and pasting of text is simple, but it can get tricky when font styles are involved. To paste the clipboard’s contents, make sure the destination document or folder is active, and then choose Edit > Paste.īut navigating to the menu bar every time you wish to cut, copy, or paste is mind-numbing. How do you cut, copy, and paste? Once you select the content you wish to cut or copy, choose Edit > Cut or Edit > Copy. For instance, if you’re writing a report, and you decide that you want to move a paragraph higher up, you can select that paragraph, cut it, and paste it in the new place. Cut is thus handy for rearranging things. When you cut selected data, it disappears from its original location and moves onto the clipboard. You might copy a street address to paste into a mapping app, copy a photo from Safari to share with a friend, or copy a file in order to move it to another folder.Ĭlosely related to Copy is Cut, which combines the copy action with a delete action. When you copy selected data, OS X duplicates it on the clipboard for later pasting. (Don’t forget the Command-A shortcut for Select All!) Once you have something selected, you can copy or cut it. How you select varies with the situation and the data, but it usually involves clicking once, or clicking and dragging over an area. That might be text ranging from a character to an entire book, an image or a portion of an image, a file in the Finder, a column of data in a spreadsheet, or a chunk of an audio recording. A small window appears, displaying whatever text or image is currently on the clipboard.īefore you can use Copy or Cut, you must first select some data. Although the clipboard is generally invisible to the user, you can view its contents in the Finder - just choose Edit > Show Clipboard. To understand what the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands do, you first must understand the concept of the clipboard, a virtual container that holds whatever data you copy or cut. And many others are missing out on advanced techniques with copy and paste, not to mention related ways of moving data between documents and apps. Surprising as this may be, some people still don’t understand the basics.


Sure, there are share buttons now, but would Twitter and Facebook have gotten off the ground if everyone had to link to cat videos by hand?

It would also be far harder to share links to Web pages. If we didn’t have copy and paste, vast amounts of work would have to be done from scratch, rather than starting from previous bits of text, graphics, or entire documents that just need minor modifications.

Most of us use the Copy and Paste commands multiple times every day, probably hundreds of times per week, without even realizing it. That may sound odd, but just think how much you rely on it.
Where is the clipboard mac os x how to#
