Graham Mayor

... helping to ease the lives of Microsoft Word users.


Many people access the material from this web site daily. Most just take what they want and run. That's OK, provided they are not selling on the material as their own; however if your productivity gains from the material you have used, a donation from the money you have saved would help to ensure the continued availability of this resource. Click the appropriate button above to access PayPal.

Copying Selected Text for Re-use

Word does not provide any obvious way of saving selected text to a new document, but, as usual, there are ways around this. Perhaps the simplest method is to use a macro that copies the selected text to the clipboard, opens a new document then pastes it into that document.

The following macros offer variations on the same theme.

Macros

Sub CopySelectedToNewDoc()
Selection.Copy
Documents.Add Template:="Normal", NewTemplate:=False, DocumentType:=0
Selection.Paste
End Sub
Sub CopyCurrentPageToNewDoc()
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("\page").Range.Select
Selection.Copy
Documents.Add Template:="Normal", NewTemplate:=False, DocumentType:=0
Selection.Paste
End Sub
Sub CutPageToNewDoc()
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("\page").Range.Select
Selection.Cut
Documents.Add Template:="Normal", NewTemplate:=False, DocumentType:=0
Selection.Paste
End Sub

 

Spike

A lesser known function of Word is the 'spike' autotext entry, which is a cumulative store of information that you save to it, and which can be reproduced in a document by inserting the 'spike' autotext entry.

To move an item to the Spike, select the text or graphic you want, and then press CTRL+F3.

You can repeat this step for each additional item you want to move to the Spike.

When you use the Spike, you are cutting or removing text from its original location, NOT copying text.

Click in the document where you want to insert the Spike's contents. To insert the Spike's contents and empty the Spike, press CTRL+SHIFT+F3.

To insert the Spike's contents without emptying the Spike, point to AutoText on the Insert menu, and then click AutoText. In the Enter AutoText entries here box, click Spike, and then click Insert.

Word is packaged with a set of supplementary macros. Word 97 packed macros8.dot which is available for download from this web site

Experience suggests that most people ignore these extras, but amongst the gems in macros8.dot  are enhanced tools for manipulating the spike. It is a simple matter to copy the macros to normal.dot and create a custom 'spike' toolbar to have the extra commands immediately available.

The spike is thus a useful tool for copying selected sections of a document to a new document, or moving blocks of text within the same document. The Office clipboard provides a similar measure of functionality, by a different route.

 

Share

 

Moving text

This page features a few simple means of moving or copying selected texts to a new document and reminds Word users of the Spike function.