Highlighting and Cut/Copy/Paste

Enhancing your Computer Efficiency - Highlighting and Clipboard Cut/Copy/Paste

About the most valuable lessons you can ever learn about your computer is highlighting and copy/cut/paste. If there's nothing else that you take with you, that's the most important thing I could ever teach you. It'll literally save days of your life from repetitive work, and retyping existing information.

Highlighing

Where can I use this?:  Windows 95(98/NT) Explorer, a windows File/Open dialog, a windows File/Save (As...) dialog, Listboxes like above, and more. Try it out for yourself.

Here's two general highlighting technique s:  Object , and  Text

Object Highlighting (Files, items in a list-box, and other non-text Objects)

Highlight a Group of Items in a row
  • Using the list below, click on "Item 2" in the list.
  • Hold down the <Shift> key
  • Click on the "Item 4".
  • Release the <Shift> key

Alternate:

  • With your Mouse, you can click-and-drag on "Item 2" to "Item 4" and then release.
Highlight two, or more things not in a row
  • Using the list below, click on the second item in the list.
  • Hold down the <Ctrl> key
  • Click on the fourth item.
  • Release the <Ctrl> key
Highlight a group, then highlight one more thing
  • Using the list below, click on "Item 2" in the list.
  • Hold down the <Shift> key
  • Click on "Item 4".
  • Release <Shift> key
  • Hold down the <Ctrl> key
  • Click on "Item 6"
  • Release the <Ctrl> key

Note: This is just using the first two methods together

 

Text Highlighting

 


Select this paragraph of text and paste it into a notepad or Word Processor window.


Then practice navigating and selecting things to see how to make yourself more efficient.

This is going to be one of the hardest things to remember to do, and it will take time and diligence to make a permanent change. But if you change your habit, it will save days, weeks or maybe even months of your life and make you a faster and more efficient computer user.

Mouse

Actions (All actions with Left Mouse button): 
Single-click  = Set Cursor Position
Single-click-and-drag  = Highlight from beginning position to place where button is released.
Double-click  = Highlight word
Double-click-and-drag  = Highlight word, and all other words between beginning point, and where button is released.
Triple-click (usually works in word processors and sometimes other locations)  = Select Paragraph

Main Key

<Shift> Key
Definition:  While held down, anything the Cursor passes over will be highlighted.
Used with:  Anything

Alternate Keys  (Can be used for non-highlighting purposes. Use any combination below with <Shift> to highlight all text between current cursor position and destination of cursor)

<Ctrl> Key
Definition:  Jumps to the beginning of previous/next word when used in combination with Left/Right Arrow keys.
Combinations (<Ctrl>+) : 
<Home> =Move to top of document.
<End> =Move to top of document.
Additional Notes: Microsoft Word, and Corel WordPerfect have:
<Ctrl>+<Down Arrow> =Cursor moves to beginning of previous paragraph.
<Ctrl>+<Up Arrow> =Cursor moves to beginning of next paragraph.
<Home> Key
Definition:  Jumps to the beginning of the line of text.
Combinations: (<Home>+)
<Ctrl> =Moves to the beginning of the text document.
<End> Key
Definition:  Jumps to the end of the line of text.
Combinations: (<End>+)
<Ctrl> =Moves to the end of the text document.
<Page Up> Key
Definition:  Moves cursor up one page of (visible) text.
<Page Down> Key
Definition:  Moves cursor down one page of (visible) text.

 


Clipboard - Using Cut, Copy, and Paste

What is the clipboard?:  It's a single item temporary "memory" in the computer. It can remember text, as well as objects in the file system (folders and files)

Where can I use this?:  Anywhere in windows (and even dos edit boxes) Works on text, files, pictures, URL's, icon's, groups of anything in Word Processors (MS Word, LibreOffice, Notepad, Wordpad etc), and MANY other places. Can you highlight it with your mouse? Then you can cut/copy/paste it too! 

Rule #1:  To use Cut, Copy and Paste you must first highlight the item you want to Cut or Copy. See above for highlighting tips .

Action
HotKey
Cut
<Ctrl>+<x>
Copy
<Ctrl>+<c> or
<Ctrl>+<Insert>
Paste
<Ctrl>+<v> or
<Shift>+<Insert>

Related Info: Other Windows HotKey's See  here

    • Related Articles

    • David's 3 Rules to Staying Safe on a Computer

      Here's David’s 3 rules of staying safe on a computer. It's my attempt at distilling my 25+ years of experience and knowledge down into some simple rules to live by in the digital realm. Rule Number 1: Keep all software patched and up to date ...

    • Buying a new computer

      Picking out a laptop in the sea of options can be tricky. Here's my tips to limit the choices and find one: Information/Decisions to put together (print this to help) Existing amount of stored data (Right click c: drive on current computer and see ...

    • Enhancing your Computer Efficiency - Using your Chrome browser

      Keyboard Cheatsheet Hotkey What it does <alt>+D Move your cursor to the Address bar of the browser and highlights current URL <enter> go to url or search current text in Address bar <Alt>+<Enter> In a new tab: go to url or search current text in ...

    • Improve your Efficiency - Making Word Processing documents and Spreadsheets

      Learning these will save thousands of hours over the course of your lifetime. Well worth the investment! Working Efficiently You should try and create documents in this order: Create your content - as much as possible (write your words) Add your ...

    • Regular Computer Maintenance - The Recurring Computer Todo List

      Here's the standard list of what you need to do to keep your computer at optimum health: Daily Updating Operating system with any new patches Update software, especially anything that touches the internet like: Web Browser PDF Reading software Email ...