For Seniors: Copy or Move Data between Windows Programs
Data in one Windows program, such as a list of items, can be copied or moved into another program when needed. Copy or move data from program to program in order to use the tools in that new program to work with the data.
You might, for example, copy a list of meeting attendees from an email message into Excel, where it can be easily sorted by last name/first name, or you might move a paragraph out of a report and move it into an accompanying slide show presentation. You can easily take text and objects such as pictures or tables and copy or move them to another program when needed.
Open documents in two programs, then right-click the taskbar on the Windows desktop and choose Show Windows Side by Side.
Active programs are arranged onscreen side-by-side.
If you don’t need one of the active programs displayed, click the Minimize button in that program so that just the programs you’re working with appear. Then choose the Show Windows Side by Side command again.
Select the information that you want to move (for example text, numbers, or a graphical object in a document) and drag it to the other application document.
To select text, drag over it; to select an object such as a picture, click it. The mouse pointer changes to an arrow with a rectangle beneath it, to show you that data is being moved. If you press Ctrl as you drag, you can copy data rather than move it.
When the mouse pointer is over the place where you want to move the data, release your mouse.
The information is moved to the document in the destination window. If you're trying to copy data, continue to press Ctrl until you release the mouse.
This method may not work between every type of program. For example, you can’t click and drag an open picture from Paint into the Windows Calendar. Moving content will work most dependably when you’re dragging text or objects from one standard program — word-processing, presentation, database, or spreadsheet — to another.
If you're not comfortable with drag and drop, you can press Ctrl+X to cut (move) or Ctrl+C to copy selected data. Click in the destination document where you want to place the item and press Ctrl+V.
In addition, some applications have Export or Send To commands to send the contents of a document to another application. For example, Microsoft Word has a File→Save & Send command to save a Word document quickly to Windows Live on the Internet.
