Word Tip Wednesday: Clipboard

Today's topic is pretty basic and I think most of us have had some experience with it. But I also think that most of us aren't aware of all the features of the Clipboard, so I thought I'd do a quick post about it. Well, hopefully it'll be quick. :)

The Clipboard menu is under the Home tab* (Figure 1).

Figure 1

The basics (or as I like to call them--The Essentials) are all there--Cut (Ctrl+x), Copy (Ctrl+c), Paste (Ctrl+v).

Format Painter is pretty cool too. Just highlight the text with the formatting you want to duplicate and click Format Painter . Your mouse cursor will turn into a tiny paintbrush. Use it to paint (select) the text you want to format and you're done. Simple, right?

You can view everything you have on your Clipboard (everything you've cut or copied) by clicking the tiny arrow in the bottom right corner of the Clipboard menu (Figure 2).

Figure 2

That will bring up this (Figure 3) on the left side of your screen.

Figure 3

This not only allows you to see everything you have on your Clipboard, but you can also select text you copied several copies back (by clicking on the arrow next to the text (Figure 3)) and paste it without copying it again. Or with this menu, you can delete text you no longer need from the Clipboard to free up space.

The Options menu at the bottom (Figure 3) allows you to change the way your Clipboard appears within Word.

Anyone else out there who can't live without these features? Anything to add? If you have any questions or need me to clarify anything, please let me know in the comments. :)

More Word tips posts here.

*Word 2007