Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Moving Text without Affecting the Clipboard.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 30, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
Here is a trick that was first introduced in Word 5 for DOS and is still valid in all succeeding version of Word. Suppose you want to move something (a word, sentence, graphic, table, etc.) from one location in the document to another. You probably know the standard way of doing the move (using cut and paste), but there is another way. You can do the move very quickly via the following:
The beauty of this technique is that the Clipboard is not involved. This means that if you had something on the Clipboard before the move, it is still there for later use; it hasn't been disturbed.
You should note that if, instead of moving, you want to just copy, all you need to do is hold down both the Shift and Ctrl keys in step 3.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12899) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Moving Text without Affecting the Clipboard.
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2020-05-30 10:03:10
Erik Eilertsen
The latest clipboards store each successive copy or cut and by displaying the clipboard you can find the one you want and insert it wherever you need it - there is no need to worry about whether a subsequent copy or cut will wipe out a previous one.
I use 2016 and on the home tab on the left is the Clipboard - click the arrow in the bottom right corner to show the clipboard. All copies and pastes are shown here from your current session - be it an image from the web, an excel or PDF page that has been copied from.
If you are going to be working on a couple of new Word documents you can open the clipboard and clear it then, if it is in the way, close it and only open it when you need to find a cut or copy that you previously made in this session.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here:
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