Copying and pasting content

Most people know how to copy and paste. But there are a few advanced tricks that you might not have discovered on your own. If you want to copy data in a field, you can copy and paste in the normal fashion. Double-clicking on a word will highlight it. if I want all the content of the cell, I can press F2 on my keyboard. Once it's highlighted, I can go up to my Home ribbon and Cut and Copy. It's even easier to use the keyboard commands, Ctrl+X to Cut, Ctrl+C to Copy, and Ctrl+V to Paste. You can also right-click on highlighted text and Cut, Copy, and Paste.

To copy an entire record, click on the gray box to the left of the record to select it and then use any of the same techniques including the right-click, Cut, Copy, Paste. If you have several pieces of data you need to copy or move you don't have to do them one at a time, Cut, Paste, Cut Paste. At the very bottom of the clipboard group is a Launcher button. When I click on it, a pane opens up on the left side of the screen. Now that it's open, I can Copy, Copy, Copy, and it will keep a list of all my clips.

Once I have them stacked up, I can use them wherever I want. I will click in a field and pick the one I need off of the list in any order. A refinement I am fond of is down here at the bottom of the clipboard in the Options button. I like to turn on Show Office Clipboard When Ctrl+C is pressed twice, that way I don't have to open up the clipboard manually. It will open automatically as soon as I copy my second item. I am going to go ahead and close the Clipboard with the X in the corner and I am going to hit Escape to get rid of the record that I was using as a sample.

Here is a technique that's a little different. What if I have records in one table that I want to move to another table or I have them in an Excel Spreadsheet and I like to add them to one of my Access tables? I can use a variation called Paste Append. The first step is to make sure that field names are exactly the same in both the source and the destination. If they are not, Paste Append won't work and instead you'll get an error message saying that it's going to create a Paste Errors table. Once your field names match, highlight the records and Copy them.

In the Access table that you went, go up to the clipboard group and choose the bottom half of the Paste button, drop it down and choose Paste Append. Voila! I am about to paste 6 records and there they are. My records have been added to the table. Using these advanced Copy/Paste techniques will allow you to move your data around between records, tables, and files with ease.