How To Paste Without Slicing Your Fingers

Many, many years ago when I first worked with words and pictures, my least favourite task in the art studio was cutting out type from paper galley proofs and pasting up. Using a Swann-Morton scalpel it involved carefully cutting along a fresh galley of printed type. It was important not to use a plastic ruler - the scalpel blade had a nasty habit of jumping off and slicing through a finger tip if it hit against the pliable edge. A metal one had much less chance of moving when working with a new blade.

But even if my fingers survived the cutting process, the anxiety wasn't over. Once I had carefully cut through my bromide, I had to very, very cautiously feed the limp remains into a wax machine - or even worse use Cow Gum to apply adhesive. By the time I had breathed in the heady vapours and managed to coat the back of my column of words, I was lucky if the type was still in a good enough condition to be pasted to a layout sheet. And then things became even more crooked.

So when production processes took a quantum leap into the world of new technology, it is safe to say that my most favourite commands were Control+X and Control+V - the Cut and Paste commands.

Oddly enough, the most frequently used command in Microsoft Office 2007 is - the Paste command. And that's why it has been given its rightful place as the first command on the Ribbon in Office 2007 Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Sitting proudly on the left hand side, just under the Office Button, it's an important position for an important tool.

Other related commands located on the Home tab are Cut and Copy. Cut is obviously another favourite of mine, now much safer and easier to use with a few clicks of the mouse. The scissors icon still instils a sense of comfort for me - far less frightening and easier to use than a surgical blade. These functions are used most often and so need to be at your fingertips - and thankfully, for me, saving years of sliced ones, too.

But there's another wonderful function on this array of Office 2007 commands - Format Painter. This command is definitely unique to the desk top era and can't really be compared to any original manual process. Format Painter is a useful tool when you need to copy an entire set of style instructions. For example, in PowerPoint 2007 you can select formatting applied to a picture and use the information throughout your presentation. Or in Word 2007, when you need to copy type styles you have customised, Format Painter saves time and avoids duplicating effort.

A last word of praise about the Clipboard group of commands: The Paste Special function allows you to specify formatting when you paste slides, pictures, objects, and text from other presentations, programs, or the Web into your Office documents. For example, pictures, graphics and text which has its own formatting - such as typeface, colour, and font size. When you copy text that has different formatting into your presentation, PowerPoint 2007 automatically reformats that text to match the text in your presentation. However, you can use Paste Special to maintain the original formatting.

I can honestly say that I never had a successful career as a paste-up artist - but I have spent a lot of time using Office 2007 without any obvious danger to my fingertips.