How to Copy and Paste

People make it sound so easy... "Yeah just throw that file on a CD or thumb drive and send it to me" or "I back my files up to an external hard drive all the time" or even, "Simply copy that file and paste it in your email."

Sounds great huh! So how do you copy and paste files from one place to another?

The Basics

If you have ever used word or notepad, then you may already have the skills to copy and paste a file. You make your selection or Hi-light what you want to copy and select Copy from the edit menu. That's copying. Pasting is then setting the cursor were you want the selection to go and then selecting Paste from the edit menu.

The same thing works for files:

1. Right-Click on the file (this hi-lights it) to display the options menu (or go to the Edit menu at the top of the window) and select Copy
2. Open the window or program were you want to Paste the file and either Right click in the window for the options list or click on the Edit menu, and select Paste.

Getting Fancy

Now you ask, "What if I want to copy a whole bunch of files at once???" No Problem, you only need to know a little more...

The secret is in the Hi-light. When you select a file by clicking on it you hi-light it. However if you try to click on any more files the first one is no logner hi-lighted... In comes the Control and Shift Keys!

Shift + Click
Click on an item. Now, hold down the shift key and click on another item. Everything between the first item and the second is now hi-lighted. To copy all of the selected files at once, RIGHT-click on one of the selected file and select copy. Easy, huh?

Ctrl + Click
What if my files are scattered all over the folder and not together?
Then the control-click is for you. Click on a file that you want. Now, hold down the CTRL key and select one or more other files. Control-clicking does just what it sounds like - gives you control over your selections. Now to copy the files, just like above,  RIGHT-click on one of the selected file and select copy.

Ctrl + A
What if I want all of these files?
Here you will want to use a keyboard short cut for selecting all - CTRL+A. Select a file in the window by clicking on it, then press and hold the control key and then the A key. Everything in the folder will hi-light!

Going External

Lets say that you want to paste your files on an external drive of some kind. These go by many names - thumb drives, flash drives, external hard drives, USB drives, keychain drives - the list goes on... The first thing you want to do is to connect the drive to your computer - usually by plugging it into a USB port.

Next, go to My Computer and open your external thing-a-ma-gigy by double clicking on it.
NOTE: By the way, when you add one of these devices, it usually shows up under a section in My Computer titled "Devices with Removable storage." Now this applies to the small "thumb" sized devices. The ones that are the size of a deck of cards or larger will likely show up under the top section "Hard Disk Drives."

Once you open the drive by double clicking on it, you can then go to the folder where you want to store your files. Once there, just Right-click in plain empty space and in the list that pops up, select Paste. That's it!