Section: Commands Available In <b>Most</b> Word Processing Programs:
...Subsection: Editing Commands and Block Manipulation

There are a number of commands you will find on nearly any word processor that enable you to manipulate text in special ways. Frequently you will find these commands on an Edit menu. The editing commands are based on a concept called block manipulation.

Block manipulation simply means taking a "chunk" of text and marking it in some way so it can be treated as one unit. Once a block of text is marked as such, it can be deleted or manipulated easily.

Marking a Block

Many modern programs allow you to mark a block of text with the mouse. Simply point the mouse at the beginning of the text you want to mark, hold down the mouse button, and drag to the end of the block. You will probably see the text you have dragged over change color. Some programs put highlighted text in inverse video. Many programs also allow you to select text with the Shift key and the arrow keys in combination. This is sometimes more precise than the mouse techniques. Some older programs require you to move the cursor to the beginning of the text, mark it as the beginning of a block, move to the end of the text you want to manipulate, and mark it as the end of the block. Learn how your program does it. It is worth the effort.

Copying a Block

You will usually find some kind of command called Copy. It only works after you have marked a block of text. Copy by itself doesn't do anything on the screen, but it is still a very important command. What it does is to take the block of text and make a copy of it in a special part of memory called the clipboard (or sometimes the buffer). The copy command does not change the original text; it just places a copy of the text in the clipboard.

Cutting a Block

Cutting is very similar to copying. You must start by marking a block of text. When you activate a cut command, the original block will disappear. It isn't gone forever, though. A copy of it has been made in the clipboard.

Pasting a Block

The paste command doesn't make much sense until you have cut or copied a block of text into the clipboard. The paste command copies the contents of the clipboard into the document at whatever point the cursor was sitting when the paste command was activated.

How Block Manipulation Works

These commands really need to be used together to be useful. Which ones you use depend on the kind of problem you are trying to solve. If you had to write "I will not talk out in class" 100 times, you might write the phrase once, mark it as a block, copy it, and then paste it 99 times.

Q. 1

Why would you paste the block 99 times rather than 100?

---

If you have written a document and realize that the last line really belongs at the beginning of the document, you might mark the line you want to move as a block, cut the block move the cursor to the beginning of the document, and activate the paste command.

Q. 2

In this case, why would you cut rather than paste?

---