Using the Office Clipboard MS Excel

Microsoft Windows provides a temporary storage place called the Clipboard to store a file or copied or cut text or cells, etc. while you are rearranging things in your spreadsheet.

The Office Clipboard improves on this by allowing storage of up to twelve items in version 2000 and up to twenty-four items in version 2003, including text, images and other elements from MS Office applications Such as Excel and PowerPoint. If you attempt to copy a 25th item, Word displays a message warning you that it will delete the oldest (the one that was copied into the Clipboard first) of the 24 items currently stored in the Clipboard.

The Clipboard appears in 2000 each time you copy or cut two or more items. You will see an icon added to the Office Clipboard. This way you can collect several items and paste them all at once or one at a time. In Office 2003 you can simply click on Edit | Office Clipboard and it opens a task pane on the right side of your screen.

The process of using the Office Clipboard to collect and paste multiple items at once is similar to the copy and cut processes.

To Collect Items:

1. Select the first cell or range you want to collect.  
2. Choose Copy or Cut.  
3. Select the second cell or range.  
4. Choose Copy or Cut. At this point the Clipboard should appear in 2000. If it doesn't, you must activate the feature by choosing View | Toolbars | Clipboard.

To Use the Items You've Collected:

1. Move the insertion point to the destination where you want to paste.  
2. To insert one item, click its icon.  
3. To insert all the items at once into a single column, click Paste All.

When you finish with a series of edits, empty the Clipboard so that you can start fresh with a new operation. To do this, click the Clear Clipboard button.

To remove the Clipboard toolbar or task pane from the screen, click it's Close button.

Warning:When you copy a formula using the Office Clipboard, formulas are not retained. Instead, they turn into values -- mere numbers.

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