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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
July 4, 2010
Happy Birthday USA
Q.
I am trying to create a new email contact,
but cannot copy and paste the address as
there is no menu item to facilitate that.
Can you copy and paste another way?
A.
Actually, there are several ways to copy and
paste an item. One of these ways is probably
so close to your hands that if it were a
snake it would have already bitten your
fingers off. Most all modern keyboards are
Window keyboards meaning they have special
keys and key marking to facilitate Windows
functions.
Look at
your keyboard to see if there is a key
between the left Ctrl and Alt keys. This key
will have the Windows logo, and possibly be
labeled Start. This key is referred to as
the Windows key, Windows Logo key, Super
key, Winkey, Start key, and sometimes more
rarely the Flag key. Since most keyboards
since the introduction of Windows 95 have
this key I suspect there will be one on your
keyboard. Here is a picture of that
section of a Windows keyboard.
Now, look
on the front of the Z, X, C, V, B or N keys.
Unless you are on a laptop, on you will see the
words Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Bold and New.
Preceding these words there is an asterisk
(*) and on the Ctrl keys there are also an
asterisks (*). What this is trying to tell
you is that if you hold down the Ctrl key
and press the C (Copy) key, that whatever
you have highlighted will be copied to the
clipboard.***
NOTE: Not
all Windows keyboards will have these words
on the front of the keys. Many economy
keyboards may not have them. But, even
if the words are not printed on the keys of
your keyboard, the functions still work.
(See the Shortcut Keys item in the left menu
of this page for more keyboard shortcuts.)
Similarly, if you hold down the Ctrl key and
press the V (Paste) key, whatever you just
copied will be pasted at the location of
your cursor. This cut and paste sequence
will work in almost all if not all Windows
applications and programs.
Note that
there are other keys that perform special
functions when pressed while the Ctrl key is
depressed. Y (Redo), U (Underline), I
(Italics), O (Open), P (Print), A (All), S
(Save) etc. Of special value is the A (All)
key. This allows
highlighting/selecting everything in a
document or folder with just these two key
presses.
NOTE:
Although these words rarely appear on the
front of a laptop keyboard, they still
perform the functions when used in
conjunction with the Ctrl key.
Another
way to copy and paste that also works in
almost all Windows applications is in the
Right click menu. If you highlight an item,
word or group of words, then right click on
the highlighted item, the menu displayed
will have the choice among many others to
Cut, Copy or Paste. So, to copy an item,
highlight it, right click it and select
Copy. Then place the cursor where you want
the item pasted, right click on it, and
select Paste.
Either of
these two ways to copy and paste is usually
much easier and faster than looking for the
menu and making the copy and paste selection
from it.
While we
are talking about the Windows keyboard, I
suspect that there are other special keys
that most never know about or use. Unless
you are on a laptop, between the right Alt
and Ctrl, are two keys that contain the
Windows logo, and possibly the word Start
and the menu icon. The Windows/Start key
function here is the same as the left
Windows/Start logo key.
The Menu
key when pressed will always display the
same menu that would be displayed if you
used the mouse to right click the item.
NOTE: A
laptop keyboard may also have a Menu key,
but its location could be anywhere.
There are
many other key presses that perform special
functions when pressed in conjunction with
the Windows key, Ctrl key, Alt key, Space
bar or a combination of these. In the
menu on the left of this page, click on
Keyboard shortcuts to see the listing of
these special shortcuts.
*** For
those that don't go back to the days before
Windows 95 when the contents of the
clipboard were viewable, the clipboard is
like a storage buffer available to Windows
and all running applications. It allows
pieces of information to be temporarily
stored and then retrieved later by another
application.
There is
a clipboard viewer included in Windows XP,
but not in Vista or Windows 7.
However, if you copy the "clipbrd.exe" file
from the C:\Windows\System32 folder of a XP
computer to the C:\Windows\System32 folder
on Vista or Windows 7, it appears to run
just fine allowing you to view the clipboard
contents. Don't have access to an XP
Computer? Download clipbrd.exe
HERE. |
