PC Know-how: Save copy cut from text

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Master Microsoft Office Clipboard

Take advantage of Microsoft Office Clipboard and become a copy and paste master

We find that it’s often the simple gadgets that are the most useful and one such is the clipboard feature that’s available in the more recent versions of Microsoft Office applications.

Giving you an ample repository for all those bits and pieces that you need to cut, copy and paste from documents but don’t necessarily want to discard, this tool can prove to be remarkably versatile.

In this Workshop we’ll show you

how to get to grips with the Clipboard in Office 2003 but you’ll also find

an earlier, more limited version in Office 2000.

Step 1…

By default, in any Office application you’ll be working with the Windows Clipboard. That means you can cut or copy one item – a text passage, say – and when you cut or copy a second, the first is overwritten. However, the Office Clipboard is much more versatile, so click on the Edit menu then on Office Clipboard to open it. Whatever is currently in Clipboard has stayed there and is displayed in the Clipboard task pane on the right. Note that an Office Clipboard icon has appeared on the Taskbar.

Step 2…

Now when you cut or copy a section of text or other item, this will be added to the gallery in the Task Pane. If you’re not sure how to do this, highlight a word, right-click and select Copy from the pop-up menu. A new item always appears at the top; if you collect a lot of items you will need to use the scroll bar to the right of the gallery to see them all. Normally, you can store up to 24 items in the Office Clipboard, with the oldest dropping off the bottom if you exceed that number.

Step 3…

You can use the Clipboard in all Office applications. Suppose you’re using the Clipboard in Word 2003 and then start up Excel. If the Clipboard Task Pane isn’t showing in Excel, double-click on the Clipboard icon on the Taskbar to open it. You’ll see the full gallery of items as before. Now you can cut or copy sections of a spreadsheet which will be added to the gallery. Do the same with Access, PowerPoint and Publisher.

Step 4…

To help you quickly identify each item, an icon is placed by each one to show which application it’s from. When you point at an item in the gallery, a blue outline box appears around it and a blue arrow appears to the side. Click on the blue arrow and a shortcut menu appears, offering you the choice of Paste or Delete. You can get the same menu by right-clicking on the item.

Step 5…

If you’ve been using the Office Clipboard to assemble everything you need to go into a document, you might find it useful to paste everything in at once. To do this, click on the Paste All button. Items will be pasted in the order in which they were added to the Clipboard. Similarly, if you have finished working on a document, you may like to empty it, ready to start afresh. If so, click on the Clear All button.

Step 6…

You can set up the Office Clipboard to suit your preferences. Click on the Options button at the bottom of the Clipboard Task Pane to see the possibilities. Probably most useful is the option to show the Clipboard automatically so that it’s available instantly. If you want to use the Office Clipboard but don’t want it occupying screen space, left-click to place a tick alongside the option Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard. One thing you can’t change is that when you close all your Office applications, the contents of the Clipboard are lost.

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