One of Word's nifty features, one that other Windows programs lack, is the ability to store more than one cut or copied block of text in the Clipboard at a time. So you can cut, cut, cut or copy, copy, copy and then pick and choose which of those blocks you want pasted back into your document. The process is called "collect and paste," and it's a handy and welcome feature — but one that also takes a bit of explaining.
The Clipboard can hold blocks of text large and small. But, normally, the Clipboard holds only one item at a time.
Looking at the Clipboard
You can view items copied or cut by peering into Word's special Clipboard. Here's how:
1. Summon the task pane.
If the task pane isn't already visible (on the right side of the document area), choose View-->Task Pane.
2. View the Clipboard task pane.
Click on the downward-pointing triangle in the task pane. Choose Clipboard from the menu. The Clipboard task pane appears, as shown in Figure 1.
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Figure 1: The Clipboard task pane. |
The scrolling list contains the last several items you've copied, not only from Word but from other programs as well.
Here are a few more tips for using the Clipboard:
 | - The Clipboard can hold only 24 items. If any more than that are copied or cut, the older items in the list are "pushed off" to make room for the new ones. The current number of items is shown at the top of the task pane.
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- Other programs in Microsoft Office (Excel and PowerPoint, for example), also share this collect-and-paste feature.
- You can close the task pane when you're done with collect and paste: Click on the X in the upper-right corner of the task pane window.
Pasting from the Clipboard
To paste any collected text in the Clipboard, click on that chunk of text with the mouse. The text is copied from the Clipboard to the toothpick cursor's location in your document.
To paste in everything in the Clipboard — all that stuff — click the Paste All button. Thwap! Everything is pasted into your document at once.
| It's possible to pick and choose what you paste. For example, position the toothpick cursor and choose a specific item to paste. Then move the toothpick cursor and paste in something else. You can paste like this all day as long as the Clipboard task pane is visible. |
After you paste text in Word, the Paste Options icon appears near the end of the pasted text. Don't be alarmed. That button allows you to select formatting for the pasted block because occasionally the block may contain formatting that, well, looks very ugly after you paste in the text.
Using the Paste Options icon is utterly optional. In fact, you can continue typing or working in Word and the icon instantly disappears. But if you want to adjust the pasted text's formatting, follow these steps:
1. Point the mouse at the Paste Options icon.
The icon turns into a "button," with a downward-pointing triangle on one end. If you've been using Windows for any length of time, you'll recognize this as a drop-down menu gizmo.
2. Click the downward-pointing triangle.
A menu appears from which you can select various formatting options. (See Figure 2.)
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Figure 2: Various Paste command formatting options. |
Here's a quick summary of the options available:
Keep Source Formatting: The formatting is fine; don't do a thing.
Match Destination Formatting: Reformat the pasted block so that it looks like the text it's been pasted into.
Keep Text Only: Just paste in the text. No formatting.
Apply Style or Formatting: Display the view pane with various text and styles and other stuff to junk up the screen.
Choose an option to match the formatting you want. You'll probably use either the first or second choices. The last one is definitely opening the door to the land of the strange and ugly.
The Paste Options icon generally doesn't go away until you start typing new text or use some other text-editing command. If you tire of the Paste Options button, you can turn off that feature: Choose Tools-->Options and select the Edit tab. Remove the check mark next to the Show Paste Options buttons item. Click OK.
Cleansing the Clipboard
You're free to clean up Word's Clipboard whenever the Clipboard task pane is visible. To remove a single item, point the mouse at that item and click on the downward-pointing triangle (refer to Figure 1). Choose Delete from the shortcut menu, and that one item is zapped from the Clipboard.
To whack all the items on the Clipboard, click the Clear All button at the top of the Clipboard task pane. You can do this if you plan on collecting several items to be pasted at once elsewhere. For example, click Clear All and then go out and copy, copy, copy. Then move the toothpick cursor to where you want everything pasted and click the Paste All button, and you're done.
 | Note that you cannot undo any clearing or deleting done in the Clipboard task pane. Be careful! |
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