Lori Kaufman is a technology expert with 25 years of experience. She’s been a senior technical writer, worked as a programmer, and has even run her own multi-location business. Read more.
Word contains a little known feature, called the Spike, that allows you to gather blocks of text and/or images from different locations in a Word document and then paste all of that content to another location in that document or into another Word file or other program.
The Spike in Word is named after the old-fashioned paper holder onto which people poked papers as they were done with them. You may still see the original version of the Spike in use in some businesses.
The Spike is different from the Clipboard, which allows you work with only one copied block of text at a time. The Spike collects multiple, non-contiguous blocks of text as you copy them until you paste all the collected blocks of text somewhere else.
To gather information into the Spike in Word, select the text and/or images you want to add and press “Ctrl + F3”. This cuts the information from your document and places it into the Spike. You can continue to cut parts of your document and Word will continue to add the cut text to the Spike.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Cut?! I don’t want to cut the text!” No worries. When you use the Spike, you are cutting or removing text from its original location, NOT copying text. However, if you don’t want to remove the text from the original location, simply press “Ctrl + Z” after cutting the text to the Spike to undo the cut. The text you originally cut still remains in the Spike.
We copied two blocks of text that we will now paste into a new document. Click the “File” tab.
Click “New” in the list of items on the left.
On the New screen, click the “Blank document” icon.
To paste the text you collected in the Spike, press “Ctrl + Shift + F3”.
NOTE: Pressing “Ctrl + Shift + F3” also erases all the information in the Spike. If you don’t want to erase the information in the Spike when you paste the contents of it, type “spike” (without the quotes), and press “Enter.”
All the information in the Spike (not just the last block of text you added to it) is pasted into your document at the insertion point.
You can also view the contents of the Spike without pasting the contents or emptying the Spike. Click the “Insert” tab on the ribbon.
Click the “Quick Parts” button in the “Text” section and select “AutoText.”
NOTE: You may have to expand the Word window to display the label on the “Quick Parts” button. If the window is too small, the text labels for some of the buttons on the ribbon do not display.
The information in the Spike displays as an AutoText item on the submenu. You can click on the “Spike” item on the submenu to insert the contents of the Spike at the insertion point. This method of pasting the contents of the Spike also leaves the contents in the Spike.
The Spike is a useful feature if you need to quickly and easily rearrange a document by moving non-contiguous text and images or create a new document from pieces of another document.
Need to quickly rearrange a document? Or copy pieces of one document into another one? Learn how to use the Spike to easily accomplish this in Word.
Do you know those spikes people poke papers onto when they’re done with them to store them? They’re common in restaurants. Once you’ve paid your bill, they poke it onto a spike with other paid bills.
Microsoft Word has a little-known feature called the Spike, but instead of storing pieces of paper, you can store blocks of text. Unlike the Windows clipboard, these blocks of text stay on the Spike until you want to paste them to another location in the current document or into another new or existing Word document. The Windows clipboard only stores one copied item at a time, unless you use a third-party tool to expand the clipboard’s capabilities.
The Spike is like the method of copying and pasting multiple blocks of highlighted text we discussed before. But you don’t have to select all the separate blocks of text and copy them at once when using the Spike.
Add Content to the Spike
You can copy and paste any type of content—like text, tables, and images—onto the Spike. To add content to the Spike, select the content and press Ctrl + F3.
This cuts the content and puts it on the Spike. But don’t panic. If you don’t want to cut the content from the original location in the document, press Ctrl + Z to undo the cut. The content returns to the original location and stays in the Spike.
Select another block of text and press Ctrl + F3 again to add it to the Spike. You can do this as many times as you want.
Paste the Contents of the Spike Using a Shortcut or the Word “Spike”
We’re going to paste the contents of our Spike into a new document. You can also paste the contents into another location in the same document.
Click the File tab. Then, click New and click Blank document on the New screen.
To paste the blocks of text you collected in the Spike, press Ctrl + Shift + F3.
This empties the Spike so the blocks of text are not available to paste anymore. If you’re pasting the contents of the Spike to multiple places, or you just don’t want to lose what you copied, you can paste the blocks of text and keep them in the Spike at the same time.
Type: spike and press Enter.
When you type: spike, you’ll see the first part of each block of text in a popup before you press Enter.
Word pastes all the information in the Spike (not just the last block of text you added to it) into your document at the cursor. Any formatting, like bold, italic or different fonts, are preserved in the pasted text.
Paste the Contents of the Spike Using the Ribbon
You can also paste the contents of the Spike into your document using a command on the ribbon.
Click the Insert tab. Then, click the Quick Parts button in the Text section and move your mouse over Auto Text.
If your Word window is too small, you may not see the text label on the Quick Parts button. But you can simply click the icon for the button as shown below.
Word shows the contents of the Spike on the submenu. Click Spike on the submenu to paste its contents into your document.
Pasting the contents of the Spike using the Quick Parts button also leaves the contents in the Spike.
Empty Out the Spike to Reuse It
If you want to copy blocks of text and paste them into multiple locations, typing “spike” or using the ribbon to paste the contents of the Spike is quite useful.
But if you know you’re not going to paste the contents of the Spike anywhere else, use Ctrl + F3 to paste the contents. That way, the Spike is empty and ready for the next use.
At times you may have multiple blocks of text in different locations that you want to copy and paste into Word. Unfortunately, Word does not offer the option to copy text from more than one selection at once. Ordinarily, you’d switch back and forth between locations, copying and pasting individual blocks into a separate Word document. Sure it works, but this method is hectic and time-consuming.
What’s more annoying is that if you copy text from multiple locations, when it comes to pasting, Word will only paste the contents of the last selection by default. However, there is a way you can copy and paste text from multiple locations all at once. In this tutorial, we’ll show you two easy methods you can use to copy and paste text from multiple text selections in Microsoft Word.
Method 1: Use Spike
In Microsoft Word the Clipboard has an extended feature called Spike. This lesser-known feature lets you copy texts from multiple selections to the Clipboard, then paste them as a group to a new location. Spike is easy to use and works with both text and graphics. To use Spike, follow the steps below:
1. Select the block of text that you want to copy.
2. Press Ctrl + F3 to copy the text into Spike.
3. Highlight the next block of text that you want to copy, and press Ctrl + F3 to add it to the Clipboard. Repeat this process until you have copied all the text blocks you want from the source document.
4. Use Ctrl + Shift + F3 to paste all the copied blocks into a blank document.
Even if you copied text from twenty different locations, Spike will paste them all at once in your new document, with the ones you copied first appearing on top, and in that order.
This technique is the easiest, but it does have some limitations. For instance, when you press the Ctrl + F3 keys, Spike will cut rather that copy content from the source document. However, whenever you press Ctrl + F3 to place a block of content to Spike, you can make it a habit to press Ctrl + Z to undo the cut, and this won’t remove the content from Spike.
Method 2: Use the Highlighter Tool
You have probably used the highlighter pen to highlight your favorite phrases or some sections that need special attention in a Word document. But did you know that you can also use this tool to copy and paste text from multiple text selections in Word? We’ll show you how to do it.
1. Open the source document, and highlight the text you want to copy throughout the document. By default, the highlighter pen is set to highlight text in Yellow when you click it.
2. If you want to use a different color, you can select one from the available colors by clicking on it. Highlight all the text blocks you want to copy throughout the article.
3. The next step is to find and select all the highlighted text. To do so, click Ctrl + H . A “Find and Replace” dialogue box will pop up. Click the “Find” tab, followed by the “More” option.
4. Doing so will expand the dialogue box and open up more options. Click the “Format” drop-down, then select “Highlight” from the menu options.
5. The “highlight” format will now appear below the “Find what” edit box. Click the “Find in” drop-down, then select “Main document” from the menu that will pop up.
6. Microsoft Word will now scan the document for all the highlighted text blocks. It will then select all the highlighted text blocks and notify you of the selected items. In my case Word found six items that matched my search criteria.
7. Close the dialogue box, then click Ctrl + C to copy all the highlighted text blocks.
8. Open a blank Word document. Press Ctrl + V to paste the highlighted, selected text into the new document. Each separate text block will be pasted as a new paragraph. You’ll notice that the pasted content will come with the formatting you applied, including the color you used to highlight the text.
If you want to paste the content without the formatting, you can do so by adjusting the settings in the blank document. Rather than using the Ctrl + V hotkeys, head over to the paste settings under the File tab and choose “Keep text only.”
Now your text will paste without any highlighting color or special formatting.
Wrapping Up
Copying and pasting multiple text blocks at once can be very useful in many scenarios. For example, you may have a lengthy source document that you want to copy multiple text excerpts from. Rather than copying and pasting each text block one at a time, which is rather tiresome, you can easily do it all at once, if you know the tricks.
Moreover, pasting is not only restricted to Microsoft Word documents. You can paste the content into any program that accepts text, including email programs such as Outlook. Let us know if you encounter any problems with the above workarounds, and we’ll be happy to help.
Kenn is a tech enthusiast by passion, Windows blogger by choice, and a massive coffee imbiber. He likes watching sci-fi movies in his free time and tearing gadgets apart so he can fix them.
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Affiliate Disclosure: Make Tech Easier may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.
At times you may have multiple blocks of text in different locations that you want to copy and paste into Word. Unfortunately, Word does not offer the option to copy text from more than one selection at once. Ordinarily, you’d switch back and forth between locations, copying and pasting individual blocks into a separate Word document. Sure it works, but this method is hectic and time-consuming.
What’s more annoying is that if you copy text from multiple locations, when it comes to pasting, Word will only paste the contents of the last selection by default. However, there is a way you can copy and paste text from multiple locations all at once. In this tutorial, we’ll show you two easy methods you can use to copy and paste text from multiple text selections in Microsoft Word.
Method 1: Use Spike
In Microsoft Word the Clipboard has an extended feature called Spike. This lesser-known feature lets you copy texts from multiple selections to the Clipboard, then paste them as a group to a new location. Spike is easy to use and works with both text and graphics. To use Spike, follow the steps below:
1. Select the block of text that you want to copy.
2. Press Ctrl + F3 to copy the text into Spike.
3. Highlight the next block of text that you want to copy, and press Ctrl + F3 to add it to the Clipboard. Repeat this process until you have copied all the text blocks you want from the source document.
4. Use Ctrl + Shift + F3 to paste all the copied blocks into a blank document.
Even if you copied text from twenty different locations, Spike will paste them all at once in your new document, with the ones you copied first appearing on top, and in that order.
This technique is the easiest, but it does have some limitations. For instance, when you press the Ctrl + F3 keys, Spike will cut rather that copy content from the source document. However, whenever you press Ctrl + F3 to place a block of content to Spike, you can make it a habit to press Ctrl + Z to undo the cut, and this won’t remove the content from Spike.
Method 2: Use the Highlighter Tool
You have probably used the highlighter pen to highlight your favorite phrases or some sections that need special attention in a Word document. But did you know that you can also use this tool to copy and paste text from multiple text selections in Word? We’ll show you how to do it.
1. Open the source document, and highlight the text you want to copy throughout the document. By default, the highlighter pen is set to highlight text in Yellow when you click it.
2. If you want to use a different color, you can select one from the available colors by clicking on it. Highlight all the text blocks you want to copy throughout the article.
3. The next step is to find and select all the highlighted text. To do so, click Ctrl + H . A “Find and Replace” dialogue box will pop up. Click the “Find” tab, followed by the “More” option.
4. Doing so will expand the dialogue box and open up more options. Click the “Format” drop-down, then select “Highlight” from the menu options.
5. The “highlight” format will now appear below the “Find what” edit box. Click the “Find in” drop-down, then select “Main document” from the menu that will pop up.
6. Microsoft Word will now scan the document for all the highlighted text blocks. It will then select all the highlighted text blocks and notify you of the selected items. In my case Word found six items that matched my search criteria.
7. Close the dialogue box, then click Ctrl + C to copy all the highlighted text blocks.
8. Open a blank Word document. Press Ctrl + V to paste the highlighted, selected text into the new document. Each separate text block will be pasted as a new paragraph. You’ll notice that the pasted content will come with the formatting you applied, including the color you used to highlight the text.
If you want to paste the content without the formatting, you can do so by adjusting the settings in the blank document. Rather than using the Ctrl + V hotkeys, head over to the paste settings under the File tab and choose “Keep text only.”
Now your text will paste without any highlighting color or special formatting.
Wrapping Up
Copying and pasting multiple text blocks at once can be very useful in many scenarios. For example, you may have a lengthy source document that you want to copy multiple text excerpts from. Rather than copying and pasting each text block one at a time, which is rather tiresome, you can easily do it all at once, if you know the tricks.
Moreover, pasting is not only restricted to Microsoft Word documents. You can paste the content into any program that accepts text, including email programs such as Outlook. Let us know if you encounter any problems with the above workarounds, and we’ll be happy to help.
Kenn is a tech enthusiast by passion, Windows blogger by choice, and a massive coffee imbiber. He likes watching sci-fi movies in his free time and tearing gadgets apart so he can fix them.
- Tweet
Affiliate Disclosure: Make Tech Easier may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.
You can specify formatting when you paste slides, text, pictures, objects, and tables from other programs or the web into your Office application such as Access, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.
Using Paste Special
Like pictures and other objects, text in a presentation has its own formatting — such as typeface, color, and font size. When you copy text that has different formatting into an Office program, the program, such as PowerPoint or Word, automatically reformats that text to match the text of the destination. However, you can use Paste Special to maintain the original formatting or paste it as a link or a picture, for example.
Cut or copy the slide, picture, text, or object that you want to paste.
Click in your Office file at the place you wish to insert that item.
On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click the arrow under Paste, click Paste Special, and then choose one of the options below.
Tip: If you’d prefer to use the keyboard you can press CTRL+ALT+V to invoke Paste Special.
Paste
To specify the format that you want to paste the slide, text, or object as, click Paste, and then use the table below to select a format from the Use this format list.
Use this format
You want the text to retain the formatting of the text from the other program or web page.
You want the text to take on the formatting of the Office program you’re pasting to.
Microsoft Office Drawing Object
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Microsoft Office drawing object.
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) picture.
The GIF file format is limited to 256 colors, and is therefore most effective for scanned images, such as illustrations, and less effective for color photographs. GIF is also a good file format for line drawings, black and white images, small text that is only a few pixels high, and animation.
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) picture.
The JPEG file format supports 16 million colors and is best suited for photographs and complex graphics.
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Portable Network Graphics (PNG) picture.
The PNG file format is similar to GIF but it provides better color support. It compresses solid areas of color while preserving sharp detail, such as the detail in line art, logos, or illustrations with text.
You can save, restore, and re-save a PNG image without degrading its quality. Unlike GIF files, PNG does not support animation, and some older web browsers and applications do not support PNG.
Picture (Windows Metafile)
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Windows Metafile Format (WMF) picture.
You can save a picture as a 16-bit graphic (for use with Windows 3.x and later).
Picture (Enhanced Metafile)
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as an Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format.
You can save a picture as a 32-bit graphic, which supports more sophisticated graphics functions.
Device Independent Bitmap
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a Device Independent Bitmap (DIB), such as a slide acting as a graphic for use on web pages.
A DIB is a representation (that consists of rows and columns of dots) of a graphics image in computer memory. The value of each dot (filled in or not) is stored in one or more bits of data.
You want the contents of the Clipboard to appear as a bitmap.
The Microsoft Windows BMP format can display millions of colors. Because it is supported by several programs, it is an extremely practical file format to use when you are providing an image to someone who may not have the program in which you created the image.
Paste Link
To add a hyperlink to a separate document or presentation, click Paste Link.
Note: The Paste Link option is unavailable if you cut or copied content from a document that does not support the Paste Link option, or if the document that you are attempting to link to has not been saved.
To paste the content as an Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) application icon (rather than pasting the actual content), select the Display as icon check box. You can click the icon to open the application, and then view the content. The Display as icon check box is only available if you use Paste Link or if you paste the content as an OLE object. You can then can change the icon for the content that you pasted.
Microsoft has long produced software with a belt-and-braces approach, offering a choice of ways to perform a particular task.
For example, in Word, you’ll find a smorgasbord of methods for cutting, copying and pasting text. There’s the usual cut, copy and paste via keystroke, menu or toolbar. There’s also the Office Clipboard, which is like copy-and-paste on steroids. Then there’s the often-overlooked spike, which sits halfway between the other two methods in terms of power.
The spike lets you quickly reorganize snippets of text and graphics. You grab the snippets from different locations in your document, place them one by one on the spike, then use the Insert From Spike command to paste them as a block into your document.
The spike didn’t qualify for inclusion in Word’s menus or toolbars, but you can easily access it using the keyboard: Ctrl+F3 cuts the selected text and places it on the spike; Ctrl+Shift+F3 copies the entire contents of the spike into the document at the current location.
So if you’re working on a masterpiece such as this:
Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
When up through the ground came a bubblin’ crude.
Then one day he was shootin’ at some food
Come listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed
and decide a little rearranging would improve its readability, select the fifth line and press Ctrl+F3; then line 2 and press Ctrl+F3; line 4, Ctrl+F3; line 3, Ctrl+F3; line 1, Ctrl+F3; and finally press Ctrl+Shift+F3 to paste the newly arranged result:
Come listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin’ at some food
When up through the ground came a bubblin’ crude.
Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.
Of course, the spike really comes into its own when you’re writing something a little more weighty and need to rearrange entire paragraphs or sections to create the best flow.
Spike’s idiosyncracies
There are several things worth noting about the spike.
- First, the spike uses a separate area of memory from the Windows and Office clipboards. So you can press Ctrl+C to copy an item to the clipboard, then subsequently press Ctrl+F3 to cut an item to the spike, and the contents of the clipboard will remain untouched. When you press Ctrl+V the contents of the clipboard will be pasted into the document; when you press Ctrl+Shift+F3 the contents of the spike will be inserted.
- While the Windows Clipboard can hold a single item at a time and the Office Clipboard can hold 24, the spike has a voracious appetite and is happy to accommodate thousands of items.
- When you insert the contents of the spike into the document using the Insert From Spike command (Ctrl+Shift+F3), the spike is emptied. This contrasts with the behavior of the clipboard, where the contents remain available for pasting and re-pasting until you replace the contents by cutting or copying another item. If you’d prefer to keep the contents of the spike intact while pasting it into your document, it helps to know that when you cut the first item to the spike, in the background Word creates an AutoText entry called ‘spike’; the entry is deleted after you press Ctrl+Shift+F3. So if, instead of pressing Ctrl+Shift+F3 to insert the spike, you instead type spike and press F3, Word performs the usual AutoText actions instead: it copies the contents of the ‘spike’ AutoText entry without deleting it.
- The spike is shared by any documents you have open. You can spike an item from the first document, switch to the second and spike three items there, switch back to the first document and insert all four items.
- Things get a little tricky when you try to add the contents of a table to the spike. If you select the table and then press Ctrl+F3, the only thing that gets spiked is the contents of the table’s first cell. This is because Word stops ‘spiking’ when it hits the first paragraph mark, and, because it treats the end-of-cell marker as a paragraph mark, it copies that first cell’s contents then stops. To get around this, make sure you select the entire table plus the paragraph mark following the table. It may help to click the Show/Hide button on the toolbar so you can quickly spot the paragraph mark.
Avoiding blank lines
You may find it useful to switch off Smart Paragraph Selection in order to avoid creating blank lines between each of the items on the spike.
With Smart Paragraph Selection enabled, it’s impossible to select a paragraph without grabbing that final paragraph mark as well. If you spike the series of lines from our previous example with Smart Paragraph Selection enabled, you’ll end up with this:
Come listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin’ at some food
When up through the ground came a bubblin’ crude.
Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.
If you switch Smart Paragraph Selection off, you can select a paragraph minus the paragraph mark by dragging carefully to the text end; you can still grab the paragraph mark if you want to by dragging past the “end” of your paragraph to include the mark. You can also grab a paragraph complete with its paragraph mark by placing the cursor in the left-hand margin and dragging down.
To turn Smart Paragraph Selection off, in Word 2007 click the Office Button -> Word Options -> Advanced and deselect Use Smart Paragraph Selection. In Word 2003, click Tools -> Word Options -> Edit tab and deselect Use Smart Paragraph Selection.
The Office Clipboard allows you to copy up to 24 items from Office documents or other programs and paste them into another Office document. For example, you can copy text from an email message, data from a workbook or datasheet, and a graphic from a presentation, and then paste them all into a document. By using the Office Clipboard, you can arrange the copied items the way that you want in the document.
You’re not limited to only pasting the last item you copied or cut when you use the Clipboard task pane. The Clipboard task pane holds many of the last images and text you copied or cut.
Note: You can still do simple cut, copy, and paste the way you’re used to, either by using the buttons on the ribbon or the keyboard shortcuts CTRL+X (Cut), CTRL+C (Copy), or CTRL+V (Paste).
Open the Office Clipboard task pane
To open the Clipboard task pane, click Home, and then click the Clipboard dialog box launcher. Double-click the image or text you want to paste.
Note: To open the Clipboard task pane in Outlook, in an open message, click the Message tab, and then click the Clipboard dialog box launcher in the Clipboard group.
Copy and paste multiple items using the Office Clipboard
Open the file that you want to copy items from.
Select the first item that you want to copy, and press CTRL+C.
Continue copying items from the same or other files until you have collected all of the items that you want. The Office Clipboard can hold up to 24 items. If you copy a twenty-fifth item, the first item on the Office Clipboard is deleted.
As items are added to the Office Clipboard, an entry is displayed in the Clipboard task pane. The newest entry is always added to the top. Each entry includes an icon representing the source Office program and a portion of copied text or a thumbnail of a copied graphic.
Click where you want the items to be pasted. You can paste collected items into any Office program.
Do one of the following:
To paste items one at a time, in the Clipboard task pane, double-click each item that you want to paste.
To paste all the items that you copied, in the Clipboard task pane, click Paste All.
Delete items from the Office Clipboard
You can delete items from the Office Clipboard individually or all at the same time.
In the Clipboard task pane, do one of the following:
To clear one item, click the arrow next to the item that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
To clear all items, click Clear All.
Control how the Office clipboard is displayed
To control how the Office Clipboard is displayed, click Options at the bottom of the task pane.
Show Office Clipboard Automatically
Automatically displays the Office Clipboard when copying items.
Show Office Clipboard When CTRL+C Pressed Twice
Automatically displays the Office Clipboard when you press CTRL+C twice.
Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard
Automatically copies items to the Office Clipboard without displaying the Clipboard task pane.
Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar
Displays the Office Clipboard icon in the status area of the system taskbar when the Office Clipboard is active. This option is turned on by default.
Show Status Near Taskbar When Copying
Displays the collected item message when copying items to the Office Clipboard. This option is turned on by default.
The Clipboard is a holding place on your computer where you can temporarily store data (text, pictures, and so on). When you copy something, your selection is held on the Clipboard, where it remains until you copy something else or shut down your computer. This means that you can paste the same data multiple times and in different applications. The Clipboard holds only the last selection that you copied.
On the Mac, you cannot view or clear the Clipboard.
Select the data that you want to copy.
On the Standard toolbar, click Copy .
Click the location where you want to paste the data.
On the Standard toolbar, click Paste .
The Paste Options button that appears in your document is temporary. You can click it to change the formatting of the pasted item. To dismiss it, click anywhere else in the document, press ESC , or begin typing.
The keyboard shortcut for Copy is + C , and for Paste it’s + V .
To save and reuse text and graphics, even if you turn off your computer, you can use the Scrapbook.
This article explains how to cut and paste using the spike feature in Word.
Cutting and pasting using the spike feature in Word allows non-continuous sections to be cut in series, and then all of the parts are pasted simultaneously with one command. Also, unlike normal cut and paste, using the spike preserves commenting in the block of text that was cut and pasted.
- Select the text to be cut to the spike and press Ctrl+F3.
- (Optional) Press Ctrl+Z to restore the text that was cut in step one. A copy still remains in the spike to be pasted later.
- (Optional) Repeat steps 1 and 2 to cut more text if needed. It will continue to add the text together in the spike.
- Click on the desired location to paste the spike in the document, and press Ctrl+Shift+F3.
Note: If Track Changes is enabled on the Review tab, then the text will turn red and gain strikethrough instead of disappearing when cutting the spike. The text is still added to the spike to be pasted later. The font change can be reversed with Ctrl+Z after using Ctrl+F3.
- Select the text to be cut to the spike and press command+fn+F3. (Note: If standard function keys are enabled in system preferences, then the shortcut is just command+F3.)
- (Optional) Press command+Z to restore the text that was cut in step one. A copy still remains in the spike to be pasted later.
- (Optional) Repeat steps 1 and 2 to cut more text if needed. It will continue to add the text together in the spike.
- Click on the desired location to paste the spike in the document, and press command+shift+fn+F3. (Use command+shift+F3 if standard function keys are enabled.)
Re: Word 2016 / Mac.
Any tips on how to copy inserted text box and paste in same location on following pages as needed? Can’t be header/footer item as text box contents will be changed to match page contents.
Found this online; it describes one solution:
‘You can insert a text box, format and position it and add default text to it. Then select it and save to the Text Box Gallery (on the Insert tab, in the Text group, click Text Box > Save Selection to Text Box Gallery). You can then insert a copy on every page by selecting it on the Text Box drop-down.’
When I select the text box > Insert tab > Text Box, my options are ‘Draw Text Box’ and ‘Draw Vertical Text Box’. No ‘Save selection to Text Box Gallery’. I’m stuck. Help?
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I do not have a Mac and am writing from my experiences with the Windows version. That version is similar, but the two are not the same. While I’ve used Word on a Mac, that was a long time ago. Nevertheless, I hope that I can be of some help.
The Mac version does not have a text box gallery (yet). Save it as AutoText.
I hope this information helps. Please let me know if you have any more questions or require further help.
Volunteering to “pay forward” to return help I’ve received in the Microsoft user community.]
Charles Kenyon
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
wordfaq[at]addbalance[dot]com
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the StyleRef field should work fine so long as what you want to appear in the textbox appears on the page. Otherwise it will show from the last use of the style.
I have downshifted to Word 2011 for Mac, because of Word 2016’s crippling slowness.
StyleRef works brilliantly! For part of what I want to do anyway.
I have a two-row table in my header.
- Bottom row: Chapter title: Header 1. That is working, updating with each new Header 1.
- Top row: Header 2, of which there are several in each chapter. Not successful.
My intention: When the first Header 2 appears, StyleRef inserts it into the top row of the header table, and continues to use it until the next Header 2 (which could be several pages away) replaces the first.
What actually happens: StyleRef inserts the Header 2 in the top row of all pages, even those before the desired insertion page. I have been using Section Break/New Page and turning off ‘Same as Previous’ on the first page of each new section, to help isolate formatting.
Any ideas how to do this?
I haven’t found how to get StyleRef to include the multilevel list numbers for the Header1 and Header2.
Any tips for that?
“The use of a style with a frame and next-page formatting will do everything that the next-page section break would do. The frame would not have any content built in.”
Can you send me a URL to more info on this?
Yes, InDesign is better for many aspects of this; unfortunately, the client needs to be able edit a goof-proof doc in Word. I am really learning a lot!
There is no such thing as a goof-proof Word document. You can restrict editing.
Study the StyleRef Field. It will pick up numbering. You can also us switches.
Volunteering to “pay forward” to return help I’ve received in the Microsoft user community.]
Charles Kenyon
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
wordfaq[at]addbalance[dot]com
