Cut & Paste Tutorial
Cut and Paste is one of the newest features of
WebTV, and maybe one of the most confusing and
intimidating. This feature, when used properly,
can be of great benefit when writing replies to
e-mails, posting in newsgroups, joining webrings, and any other situation where copying or editing
text is necessary.
Cut and paste is actually very simple, once you
learn the basic keys to use.
There are basically two things you can do with
this feature:
* Edit/Cut Text
* Copy/Paste Text
We'll cover them one at a time, beginning with
cutting or editing text.
Editing/Cutting Text
Whenever you wish to cut/edit OR paste/copy, you
must first highlight the text you wish to use.
This is done using several methods, but I've
found the one I'll describe below to be the
easiest.
Let's say we want to edit the paragraph above.
The first thing we need to do is highlight the
text we want to remove. Let's say we want to
erase the words "several methods."
Press the Find button on the keyboard and type in "several methods" This phrase will now be
highlighted. To increase or decrease the area
highlighted, use the arrow keys (right, left, up, and down) and the SHIFT key. Hold down the CMD
key and press one of the arrows. Left and right
will move you one space in that direction, while
up and down will move you one line either way.
Once you've selected the text you want to cut or
remove, press CMD and X. The text will vanish.
You can remove one work, one sentence, or a whole page of info. It's completely up to you how much
text you highlight. If you ever want to escape
(un-highlight all the text), just press CMD and
A.
Copying/Pasting Text
When copying or pasting text, the first thing you need to do is hightlight text, just like we
covered in the section above. The only different
here is that we are not going to erase the
text...rather, we are going to make a copy and
place that copy somewhere else (in an e-mail, a
newsgroup, on a web page, etc.)
Once you've highlighted the text you want to copy or paste, press CMD and C. This will copy the
text into your box's memory, and it will stay
there until you power off, change users, or copy
it. It will also be erased if you press CMD and C again.
Now that we've stored the piece we want to copy,
we need to find the place to put it. Go to the
place you wish to copy it (as I've said, it can
be in an e-mail message, a newsgroup posing, on a Web Page builder, etc.). Move your cursor to the
spot where you want the text to appear. Then
press CMD and V. It's that simple. The text will
then appear in the area you've selected.
Cut and paste is a feature that you will likely
find very helpful, especially if you write a lot
of e-mails or use chatrooms/discussion groups a
lot. It makes it a lot easier to reply to a
message because with Cut and Paste, you can now
quote part or all of the original message without having to re-type it.
I'd suggest practicing the different features of
Cut and Paste by using your mailbox. Type a
letter and send it to yourself. Then practice
editing and copying parts of the letter. Try
copying part of it to a new message you're
writing, and send that whole letter to yourself.
After a few tries, you'll have it down and find
it easier and easier.
A Note About Quoting Text: Sometimes, you may
notice that quoted text is indented and smaller
than the reply. Here's how to do that:
Once you've copied the quoted text, you'll need
to place a > at the beginning of each line of the quoted text. Also, you will need to hit enter at
the end of each line. This will make any lines
you do this to appear smaller and indented. There is no need to put a < at the end of each line or
paragraph.