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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > How to selectively copy in OSX?

How to selectively copy in OSX?
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ebuddy
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May 14, 2008, 06:28 AM
 
Okay this is likely a stupid question, but I can't find the answer.

In Windbloze @ work, if I wanted to highlight every other word in the above sentence, I'd hold cntrl while clicking every other word. I could then select "copy" and paste these selected copies into another app or document. How would I do such a thing in OSX? I tried googling "selective copy", but no avail.

Another example is let's say I'm using a spreadsheet and I want to select every other cell. I'd hold cntrl and select every other cell to do this at work, how would I do that on Leopard @ home? I know I can hold shift while clicking and it'll grab those in succession, but how to do every other item?
ebuddy
     
Chuckit
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May 14, 2008, 06:52 AM
 
In Mac OS X, the command key means "add to selection."
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analogika
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May 14, 2008, 06:52 AM
 
Generally, it's Cmd-clicking for discontinuous selection.

Doesn't work for text, though.
     
TETENAL
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May 14, 2008, 07:11 AM
 
Works in TextEdit, Pages and Microsoft Word with Command-dragging. Doesn't work in Safari.
     
JKT
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May 14, 2008, 12:56 PM
 
By the way, it is called discontiguous text selection.
     
ebuddy  (op)
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May 15, 2008, 06:19 AM
 
Huge help all! Thanks a million.

I should also qualify that I'm not able to employ discontiguous text selection in IE at work either (I thought I had, but tried it yesterday and can't), but can in Word, Excel, etc...
ebuddy
     
CharlesS
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May 15, 2008, 12:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by TETENAL View Post
Works in TextEdit, Pages and Microsoft Word with Command-dragging. Doesn't work in Safari.
Actually, it doesn't work in Pages. You can select discontinuous chunks of text by using the Command key, but the "Copy" item will be greyed out in the Edit menu. Using the option key to select a region (as you can do in TextEdit or Word) doesn't even work at all.

Why Pages is missing features that TextEdit, of all things, has is somewhat confusing to me.

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