Collect and Paste Text Snippets from all Over Word to a Single Location
It's not uncommon for me to find myself needing to copy and paste disparate phrases from all over a document to a single location. Let me give you an example: Suppose I've been taking notes or outlining a document, and now I want to collect phrases from across the doc and arrange them as a bulleted list at the start of my final document. You can use traditional cut and paste, but there's a faster way: Word's Spike tool.
The Spike works sort of like those old desktop spikes that office workers would use to spear bits of paper (back before OSHA or, I suppose, any conception of office safety). The Spike tool in Word works the same way, only without the ever-present threat of tetanus. Here's what you do:
- Select some text and press Ctrl+F3. This cuts the text and adds it to the spike.
- Lather, rinse, and repeat as much as necessary until you've collected all the text you want.
- If you only want to paste the text once, and clear the spike, position the insertion point and press Ctrl + Shift + F3.
- If you want to paste the text more than once, position the insertion point, type spike, and press F3. Repeat as needed.
