Computers and the software we use have been instrumental in enabling businesses to reach previously unattainable levels of productivity. While many programs are a major part of any computer, only a handful have been integrated in nearly every business. One such program is Microsoft Office, and it’s word processor, Word. There are tons of productivity enhancing features in Word, including copy and paste, which is a surprisingly powerful and useful tool.

Here’s an overview of Word’s copy and paste feature, including some of the more advanced uses, with which you might not be familiar.

Simple copy and paste
As you likely know already, you can copy by selecting/highlighting text or pictures and either right-clicking and selecting copy; pressing Ctrl + C (Command + C on Mac) or selecting File followed by Copy.

You can then paste by either right-clicking and selecting paste; pressing Ctrl + V (Command + V on Mac) or selecting File followed by Paste. When you copy and paste, the highlighted text or image will be placed where you have placed the cursor.

While simple copying and pasting does the trick for most situations, there are times when you are copying from one word document to another and need something else. Many documents have different text and layout formats which can make copying a bit inefficient, as you will likely have to change some of the text or image settings. Word has four built-in features that can make this task easier.

These settings can be found by first highlighting what you would like to copy. You should see a clipboard above the highlighted text when you hover your mouse over it. Pressing the down-facing black arrow will open the different copy functions.

• Keep Source Formatting – Pressing this will keep the formatting of the text/document from which you copied. This is the default option.
• Merge Formatting – This will keep the text’s format, without changing the format of the document you paste into. That is, if the text you copied is a different font and size, it will be pasted into the new document with the same formatting, but the next word in the document will retain the previous format.
• Use Destination Style – This will change the text you copied to the same format as the document you paste into.
• Keep Text Only – This will copy only the text. All graphics, tables, charts and formatting will be discarded. When you paste into the new document, the text will be changed to that document’s formatting.

This feature can help make it easier to copy and paste from one document to another. Office has many features that can assist in improving your productivity and make your job easier. If you are interested in learning more Office tips and tricks, please contact us today.