Shortcuts for copying and pasting text

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Chris Lale
chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de

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Revision History



Revision 0.1 1st February 2006 Revised byChris Lale
Initial Release.

Revision 0.2 26th November 2007 Revised by Chris Lale
Reformatted for newbiedoc package.


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Abstract

It is possible to copy and paste text between X applications and console applications running in a terminal window. There are both keyboard and mouse methods.

Contents


1 Introduction

If you are using Gnome or KDE or a modern window manager, you can cut, copy or paste text without using an application's built-in Edit menu. In fact, you can copy and paste text within a terminal window and between a terminal window and GUI applications. This can be useful for copying commandline output to a text editor, or for copying and pasting within a console application such as Nano.

The keyboard shortcuts can be freely mixed. In other words, you can use any method to copy followed by any method to paste. However, the mouse shortcut is best not mixed with the keyboard shortcuts.

2 Keyboard shortcuts within GUI applications

Cut - ctrl-X
Mnemonic: X looks like a symbol for scissors. Cuts text previously selected with the mouse.
Copy - crtl-C
Mnemonic: C is the initial letter of Copy. Copies text previously selected with the mouse.
Paste - ctrl-V
Mnemonic: V looks like a symbol for the tip of a glue pen. Pastes text at the insertion point.

3 Keyboard shortcuts within a terminal window

Copy - shift-crtl-C
Mnemonic: C is the initial letter of Copy. Copies text previously selected with the mouse.
Paste - shift-ctrl-V
Mnemonic: V looks like a symbol for the tip of a glue pen. Pastes text at the insertion point.

4 Mouse shortcuts for GUI applications and terminal windows

Copy
Just select text by dragging the mouse pointer with the left button pressed. Release the left button and the selected text remains ready for pasting until a new selection is made.
Paste
Click the middle mouse button (or left and right buttons simultaneously). The text is pasted at the insertion point.

5 Appendix A: Licence

Copyright (c) 2006-2007 Chris Lale. chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de.

GNU FDL Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License."

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Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2, unless otherwise stated.