How to Cut, Copy and Paste on Your iPad and iPhone: (part of the) Very Beginner Series

* Occasional posts will contain how-tos and/or hints for VERY new users of iPads, iPhones or Kindles. All new users welcome! Non-tech speak, not terribly detailed, just basic device-enhancing goodness. All part of this Very Beginner Series.

Please share with any beginners (Mom? Dad? Grandma?) in your life.*

photo credit semuthutan via photo pin cc

We have gotten used to “cut” “copy” and “paste” on our computers. Personally I couldn’t type without them since my typing habits include considerable rearranging of my sentences. (I was much more careful back in the days of White Out. Remember that bottle with the little brush that would get hard and gloppy?)

When we type on our iPhones and iPads, we can cut and paste there, too, and this is how to do it:

Below is a sentence. I want to remove the words at the end. To remove large portions of text, the “cut” feature is much more efficient than the delete key.

Touch the word you want to remove, or single word among the words you want to remove. A little menu will pop up, with choices. Here we have “select” and “select all”.

Touch “select” (unless you want to choose ALL the text, then you would touch the “select all” option). A new menu will appear with more choices, including “cut” “copy” and “paste”.

You will also see your word highlighted with a little bar on either side. Notice the little blue dots on the bars.

Grab a dot and slide the bars to include all of the text that you want to either copy or cut. Once you have highlighted all your text, touch the action word of your choice. “Cut” will remove it. “Copy” will allow you to paste it somewhere else.

I chose “cut” and POOF! unwanted text is gone.

To paste, just touch a place where you would like to see the text. Touch and hold. Select “paste”. Whatever text you LAST “copied” or “cut” will be pasted in the spot where your cursor is positioned.

Note to Beginners: Look over to the right side of this blog. Find the list under “Categories”. Click on “Very Beginner Series” for other Very Beginner “how to” instructions.