Moving, deleting and copying

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Moving, deleting and copying

All operating systems that Presentations supports have an extremely useful feature: the clipboard.

The clipboard works as follows: You select something in the document and then cut or copy the selected text to the clipboard. You can then reinsert the selected text elsewhere in the document. The clipboard thus facilitates the deletion, copying and moving of sections of text (as well as objects).

All necessary commands (except Delete) can be found on the ribbon tab Home | group Edit:

Command

Explanation

Delete

If you select a section of text (or object) and press the Del key, the text or object will be deleted without being moved into the clipboard.

Cut

The ribbon command Home | Cut also deletes the content of a selection – but not permanently. This content is moved instead to the clipboard, where it remains available for subsequent insertion anywhere in the document.

Copy

The ribbon command Home | Copy copies the content of the selection to the clipboard.

Paste

To paste the content of the clipboard into the text, place the cursor at the desired text position and use the ribbon command Home | Paste (click directly on the icon). You can also insert the content of the clipboard multiple times in this manner.

Paste special

If you click on the small arrow below the icon rather than directly on it at Home | Paste, a dropdown menu opens with additional options for pasting the contents. For more information, see the next section Paste special.

These commands work in the same way for objects such as pictures or drawings.

Moving and copying text with the mouse ("drag and drop")

Android/iOS: This function is not available in the Android and iOS version.

You can select a section of text with the mouse, drag it to another position in the slide and drop it there. With this technique, known as drag and drop, you can move or copy text very quickly.

To do so, proceed as follows:

1.Select the section of text.
2.Position the mouse cursor on the selection.
3.Press the left mouse button and hold it down.
4.With the mouse button held down, drag the selection to the desired position on the same slide.
5.When you release the mouse button, the content of the selection is moved to the new position. When you release the mouse button while pressing the Ctrl key, the text is copied to the new position, rather than moved.