Microsoft Office

Part IV
Using Advanced Excel Features
Two Clipboards
If you copy or cut information while working in a Microsoft Office application, the application places the
copied information on both the Windows Clipboard and the Office Clipboard. After you copy information
to the Windows Clipboard, it remains on the Windows Clipboard even after you paste it so that you can use
it multiple times.
Because the Windows Clipboard can hold only one item at a time, when you copy or cut something else, the
information previously stored on the Windows Clipboard is replaced. The Office Clipboard, unlike the
Windows Clipboard, can hold up to 24 separate selections. The Office Clipboard operates in all Office applications;
for example, you can copy two selections from Word and three from Excel and paste any or all of
them in PowerPoint.
Following are the general steps that are required to copy from one application to another.
1. Activate the source document window that contains the information that you want to copy.
2. Select the information by using the mouse or the keyboard.
3. If the source application is a Microsoft Office 2007 application, choose Home ➪ Clipboard ➪
Copy. Most other applications have an Edit ➪ Copy menu command. In most cases, pressing
Ctrl+C copies the selection to the Clipboard.
4. Activate the destination application. If the program isn’t running, you can start it without
affecting the contents of the clipboard.
5. Move to the appropriate position in the destination application (where you want to paste
the copied material).
6. If the destination application is a Microsoft Office 2007 application, choose Home ➪
Clipboard ➪ Paste. Most other applications have an Edit ➪ Paste command, and you can usually
use Ctrl+V to paste. If the Clipboard contents aren’t appropriate for pasting, the Paste command
is grayed (not available). You can sometimes select other paste options by choosing Home ➪
Clipboard ➪ Paste (or Edit ➪ Paste Special).
In Step 3 in the preceding steps, you also can choose Home ➪ Clipboard ➪ Cut (or Edit ➪ Cut) from the
source application menu. This step deletes your selection from the source application after placing the
selection on the Clipboard.
NOTE
If you repeat Step 3 in any Office application, the Office Clipboard task pane appears automatically.
If it doesn’t appear, click the dialog launcher in the Home ➪ Clipboard group.
Copying from Excel to Word
One of the most frequently used software combinations is a spreadsheet and a word processor. This section
describes some of the ways to copy information from an Excel worksheet to a Word document.
Generally speaking, you can copy something from Excel and paste it into Word in one of two ways:
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As static information: If the Excel data changes, the changes aren’t reflected in the Word document.
As a link: If the Excel data changes, the changes are shown in the Word document.
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