Lesson 1: Using the Office Clipboard

When you cut or copy any data, the Office clipboard stores it so you can paste it elsewhere. You can store and paste up to 24 images and strings of text.

Viewing and Pasting Items from the Clipboard

After you use the cut or copy command, your text or image is stored on the Office clipboard. You can then view the clipboard and choose the text or image you want to paste from the clipboard into your file.

To view the Office clipboard and paste items from it, follow these steps:

1. Move the cursor to the place where you want to paste an item from the clipboard.
2. Click the clipboard icon (see image below). The Clipboard pane appears.

3. Click the item you want to paste. Word pastes the text or image into the location you chose in Step 1.
4. Click the X in the upper right corner of the clipboard pane to hide it.

If you click the Paste All button, you can paste every item on the clipboard into your file.

Deleting items from the Clipboard

Since you can add only 24 items to the clipboard, when you add a 25th item, Word deletes the oldest item from the clipboard to make room for the new cut or copied item.

You can manually delete items from the clipboard as well, by following these steps:

1. Click the Clipboard icon. The clipboard appears.
2. Move the mouse pointer over an item on the clipboard. A downward-pointing arrow appears to the right. A pop-up menu appears with Paste and Delete.
3. Click on Delete. Word deletes the text or image from the clipboard.
4. Click on Close to hide the clipboard.

If you click the Clear All button, you can delete every item currently stored on the clipboard. Make sure you really want to delete an item from the clipboard because after you delete it, you cannot retrieve it.