One of the good features of Windows 95/98 is the clipboard which automatically runs in the background and is available from just about any user application that allows you to manipulate text and pictures. You can highlight something in one application and put it on the clipboard with EDIT\COPY (or use the CRTL key and press C), then go to a different programme and paste the contents of the clipboard into it by using EDIT\PASTE (or use the CTRL key and press V).

A couple of instances where the clipboard can be convenient and save you time:-

1. Special characters.
If you want to use a special character that's not on the keyboard, you can always open up the Windows character map and find it, but often it's easier than that. Suppose you are sending an email to someone in the UK and you want to comment about the price of something. Maybe you are replying to an email that person has sent you earlier - and you want to use the £ symbol. Well, if they have used that character in their message, just do what I did in writing this note - go to the message you received, find a £ symbol, highlight it and copy it to the clipboard, then whenever you want to use the £ symbol, just press CTRL and V (or use EDIT\PASTE).
Remember, if you can see a special symbol someone else has used in a document, you can often use it yourself via the clipboard. Mind you, this won't always work - depends how the special character was formed. If you try to copy and paste a superscript letter o for example (as used in oCelsius) from a word processing document into a plain text email programme, it will probably print as a normal o.

2. Repeated typing of complicated long names or text
Suppose you are typing an article about the Turangakumu Saddle, you have to make repeated reference to the name; that's a lot of unnecessary typing work. Just type it once, highlight it and copy to the clipboard. Then, every time you need to repeat the name, just press CTRL and V.

However, the clipboard will only hold one lot of text at a time. You can paste it as many times as you like but, whenever you copy something new to the clipboard, whatever was there previously will be replaces by your new selection. So, what if you have two long names in your article - how do you cut down the typing then?
The answer may be to use the find and replace feature in your word processor. In MS Works for example this is found under EDIT\REPLACE. Simply put a placeholder in your text instead of the long word you don't want to keep retyping. For example you might type tx instead of Turangakumu Saddle, and wx instead of Waimakaruru ranges. (Use a combination of letters which is not going to occur somewhere else in your article, so you never use it accidentally).

When you've finished typing the article you can swap these short placeholders for the real thing. Go to the replace option in the edit menu and in the box which says "find what" enter tx.

Then in the box which says "replace with" - type Turangakumu Saddle.

Then you have the choice of replacing each occurrence of the letters tx individually (by clicking "find next", and clicking "replace" each time the letters are found), or you can be brave and click on "replace all" and leave the computer to make the decision each time it finds the target letters.

If you are going to use the "replace all" command, you'd better be sure that you haven't used the letters tx in some other context somewhere else in the article, or you may get a replacement you don't want. In the above example, you would then go and do a second replace, searching for the letters wx.

Cheers, John Selby

First Printed in SNN Newsletter March-April 2000

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