Using the Windows Clipboard

The Windows Clipboard

The Windows clipboard provides the user with a useful means of facilitating the transfer of pieces of information between programs. Many programs implement the basic clipboard functions Cut, Copy, and Paste that make information transfer possible. For example, suppose you find an interesting article on the web and you want to copy a paragraph from the article to your word processor. This can be done by using the mouse to highlight the paragraph text in the web browser and then selecting the browser program's Copy function (normally found at in the menu at Edit > Copy). Next, switch to the word processor program and select its Paste function. The highlighted text from the web article now appears in the word processor program.

The Windows clipboard works with many types of information, not just text. For example, if you see a picture you like on the web you can right click on the picture in the web browser and select Copy. The picture can then pasted into a word processor, a picture editor, a picture organizer, etc.

Copy

Copies whatever document content is currently highlighted to the Windows clipboard. Copy is disabled when nothing is highlighted in the document.

Copy can also be performed by clicking the mouse's middle button (i.e., the scroll wheel button) while pressing the Ctrl key if option Middle Mouse Button Paste is enabled.

Also, the Manage Tabs submenu of the Tabs menu includes special functions for copying the current document's file name to the clipboard.

Copy All

Copies the entire document to the Windows clipboard in a single step. Copy All is the equivalent of Select All followed by Copy.

Cut

Cut is exactly the same as Copy except the document's highlighted content is deleted as part of the operation. Cut is disabled when nothing is highlighted in the document.

Cut can also be performed by clicking the mouse's middle button (i.e., the scroll wheel button) while pressing the Shift and Ctrl keys if option Middle Mouse Button Paste is enabled.

Paste

Paste inserts a copy of whatever information is currently stored on the Windows clipboard into the current document.

When text is pasted it will normally include any text formatting (e.g., bold, italics, font, etc) that is part of the text in the source that was copied. However, in some cases the text formatting will appear somewhat different when pasted into Jarte than it appears in the source. When that occurs it is normally because the source program did not accurately copy the text formatting information to the clipboard along with the text.

Paste can also be performed by clicking the mouse's middle button (i.e., the scroll wheel button) if option Middle Mouse Button Paste is enabled.

Paste Plain

Paste Plain is the same as Paste except it only works when text is present on the Windows clipboard (e.g., it does not work if a picture is has been copied to the clipboard). In addition, any text formatting (e.g., bold, italics, font, etc) is stripped away before the text is inserted into Jarte. For example, if the line:

Jarte is my favorite word processor!

is copied to the clipboard, then inserting the line with Paste Plain will cause the line to appear as:

Jarte is my favorite word processor!

Notice the text of the inserted line is exactly the same as the source line, but all of the text formatting has been stripped away. Paste Plain is very useful in situations where the text formatting present in the source text is incompatible with the existing text formatting in your document.

Paste Plain can also be performed by clicking the mouse's middle button (i.e., the scroll wheel button) while pressing the Shift key if option Middle Mouse Button Paste is enabled.