How to Copy with Your Keyboard on a PC or Mac

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Start copying to your clipboard with increasing speed using these keyboard shortcuts

Written by Darlene Antonelli, MA

Last Updated: May 19, 2023

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Using a PC

|

Using a Mac

Keyboard shortcuts increase your productivity. Usually to copy text, you select the word or phrase you want to copy, right-click and select “Copy” from the menu. This wikiHow teaches you how to copy using the keyboard.

Things You Should Know

Use Ctrl+A on a PC to select all text on the screen.
You can select a portion of text and continue selecting additional characters by holding ⇧ Shift and tapping the arrow keys ← or →.
On a PC, press Ctrl+C to copy or Ctrl+X to cut the selected text, image, or file.
On a Mac, press ⌘ Cmd+C to copy or ⌘ Cmd+X to cut the selected text, image, or file.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Using a PC

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1
Select the text you want to copy with your mouse. You can copy things such as text, images, or links from anywhere, such as word documents or web sites.
- This will work for files and images as well. Just make sure you click once on the file or image to select it.
- If you want to select all the text on your screen, press Ctrl+A.^{[1]
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- To use your keyboard completely, you can select a word and continue selecting the text by individual characters by holding ⇧ Shift and tapping the arrow keys ← or →. To select text by the sentence, hold ⇧ Shift+Ctrl and tap the arrow keys ← or →.
2
Press Ctrl+C. The selected text is copied to your clipboard. This is useful if you want to copy an email address from one source and paste it into your address bar in your email.
- If you want to “Cut” the text, simply press Ctrl+X. The text is removed from the current source and copied to your clipboard. This is useful if you want to move a lot of text in a word document.
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The copied text or image is pasted into your document.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Using a Mac

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1
Select the text you want to copy using your mouse. You can copy text, images, or links from anywhere, such as word documents or web sites.
- This will work for files and images as well. Just make sure you click once on the file or image to select it.
- If you want to select all the text on your screen, press ⌘ Cmd+A.^{[2]
  X
  Research source}
- To use your keyboard completely, you can select a word and continue selecting text by individual characters by holding ⇧ Shift and tapping the arrow keys ← or →. To select text by the sentence, hold ⇧ Shift+⌘ Cmd and tap the arrow keys ← or →.
2
Press ⌘ Cmd+C. The selected text is copied to your clipboard. This is useful if you want to copy an email address from one source and paste it into your address bar in your email.
- If you want to “Cut” the text, simply press ⌘ Cmd+X. The text is removed from the current source and copied to your clipboard. This is useful if you want to move a lot of text in a word document.
The copied text or image is pasted into your document.^{[3]
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Research source}