How to Cut and Paste Text

If you have been online or used a computer for very long, you've probably heard the terms "swipe your mouse to highlight something and then cut and paste it to wherever you want it." For some reason, no one explains exactly how to do that. So, here are the step-by-step simple and easy directions:

1. When you find some text you want to copy, perhaps to paste into an email to share with someone else, click your mouse pointer just to the left of the first letter of the first word you want copied. If you have a mouse with two buttons, right and left, click the left one.

2. Holding that left mouse button down, drag your mouse pointer acrossed and down the length of the text you want to copy. All of the text should be highlighted in blue.

3. You do not have to drag across every line, each time you move the mouse down, the full line of text in the row above will be highlighted. Don't let up on the mouse button, be sure to keep it pressed down until you get to the end of the text.

4. Drag your mouse all the way to the last letter of the last word you want to copy.

5. Let go of the mouse button.

6. Everything you want to copy should be highlighted.

7. There are two ways to copy the text. If you click on the word "edit" on the left side of the very top bar of your screen, you will see the word "copy" in the drop down box that appears. To the right of the word copy you will also see ctrl+C. To copy your text you can either click on the word "copy" in that drop down box or skip opening the edit box completely. Instead you can click and HOLD the control key down (marked Ctrl and found on the lower left corner of your keyboard) while you press the letter C.

8. You have now copied the text you highlighted onto an invisible clipboard that resides in the computer's memory. You can now open any program, word document, email, anything that allows inputting of text, and paste your text there. This is an important point, you can not add text to anything that does not allow for the input of text. You could not add text to someone else's website, for example, unless it was a comment box that allowed people to add comments to a webpage.

9. Once you've opened the program you want to paste your text into, click your mouse pointer on the spot where you want the text to be.
For example, if you wanted to copy some text off a news report you read on the CNN website and email it to someone, you could copy the text right off the screen as outlined above, and paste it into the body of your email.

10. After you click the mouse pointer on the place you want your text to go, go back up to the word "edit" on the top bar of your screen. Click on "edit". In the box that opens, click on the word "paste". Or rather than bother with the edit box, you can simply click and HOLD the ctrl key again and this time click on the letter "V". If you have been online or used a computer for very long, you've probably heard the terms "swipe your mouse to highlight something and then cut and paste it to wherever you want it." For some reason, no one explains exactly how to do that. So, here are the step-by-step simple and easy directions:

1. When you find some text you want to copy, perhaps to paste into an email to share with someone else, click your mouse pointer just to the left of the first letter of the first word you want copied. If you have a mouse with two buttons, right and left, click the left one.

2. Holding that left mouse button down, drag your mouse pointer acrossed and down the length of the text you want to copy. All of the text should be highlighted in blue.

3. You do not have to drag across every line, each time you move the mouse down, the full line of text in the row above will be highlighted. Don't let up on the mouse button, be sure to keep it pressed down until you get to the end of the text.

4. Drag your mouse all the way to the last letter of the last word you want to copy.

5. Let go of the mouse button.

6. Everything you want to copy should be highlighted.

7. There are two ways to copy the text. If you click on the word "edit" on the left side of the very top bar of your screen, you will see the word "copy" in the drop down box that appears. To the right of the word copy you will also see ctrl+C. To copy your text you can either click on the word "copy" in that drop down box or skip opening the edit box completely. Instead you can click and HOLD the control key down (marked Ctrl and found on the lower left corner of your keyboard) while you press the letter C.

8. You have now copied the text you highlighted onto an invisible clipboard that resides in the computer's memory. You can now open any program, word document, email, anything that allows inputting of text, and paste your text there. This is an important point, you can not add text to anything that does not allow for the input of text. You could not add text to someone else's website, for example, unless it was a comment box that allowed people to add comments to a webpage.

9. Once you've opened the program you want to paste your text into, click your mouse pointer on the spot where you want the text to be.
For example, if you wanted to copy some text off a news report you read on the CNN website and email it to someone, you could copy the text right off the screen as outlined above, and paste it into the body of your email.

10. After you click the mouse pointer on the place you want your text to go, go back up to the word "edit" on the top bar of your screen. Click on "edit". In the box that opens, click on the word "paste". Or rather than bother with the edit box, you can simply click and HOLD the ctrl key again and this time click on the letter "V".