1. The term "cut and paste" comes from the traditional practice in manuscript-editings whereby
people would literally cut paragraphs from a page with scissors and physically paste them onto
another page. This practice remained standard as late as the 1970s. Stationery stores formerly
sold "editing scissors" with blades long enough to cut an 8½"-wide page. The advent of
photocopiers made the practice easier and more flexible.
The act of copying/transferring text from one part of a computer-based document ("buffer") to a
different location within the same or different computer-based document was a part of the
earliest on-line computer editors. As soon as computer data entry moved from punch-cards to
online files (in the mid/late 1960s) there were "commands" for accomplishing this operation.
This mechanism was often used to transfer frequently-used commands or text snippets from
additional buffers into the document, as was the case with the QED editor.[1]
The earliest editors, since they were designed for "hard-copy" terminals, provided keyboard
commands to delineate contiguous regions of text, remove such regions, or move them to some
other location in the file. Since moving a region of text required first removing it from its initial
location and then inserting it into its new location various schemes had to be invented to allow
for this multi-step process to be specified by the user.
Often this was done by the provision of a 'move' command, but some text editors required that
the text be first put into some temporary location (AKA, "the clipboard") for later
retrieval/placement.
Although the mechanism was already in widespread use in early line and character editors,
Lawrence G. Tesler (Larry Tesler) popularized "cut and paste" in the context of computer-based
text-editing while working at Xerox Corporation Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1974–
1975.[2]
Apple Computer widely popularized the computer-based cut-and-paste paradigm through the
Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984) operating systems and applications. Apple mapped the
functionalities to key-combinations consisting of the Command key (a special modifier key) held
down while typing the letters X (for cut), C (for copy), and V (for paste), choosing a handful of
keyboard sequences to control basic editing operations. The keys involved all cluster together at
the left end of the bottom row of the standard QWERTY keyboard, and each key is combined
with a special modifier key to perform the desired operation:
Z to undo
X to cut
C to copy
V to paste
Control-V was first used for paste in the QED editor.[1]
CUA (for OS/2) also uses combinations of the Insert, Del, Shift and Control keys. Early versions
of Windows used the IBM standard. Microsoft later adopted the Apple style key-combinations

2. with the introduction of Windows, choosing the control key as their modifier key which had
previously been reserved for sending control characters.
Similar patterns of key combinations, later borrowed by others, remain widely available today in
most GUI text editors, word processors, and file system browsers.
[edit] Cut and paste
Computer-based editing can involve very frequent use of cut-and-paste operations. Most
software-suppliers provide several methods for performing such tasks, and this can involve (for
example) key-combinations, pulldown menus, pop-up menus, or toolbar buttons.
1. The user selects the text or file for moving by some method, typically by dragging over
the text or file name with the pointing-device or holding down the Shift key while using
the arrow keys to move the text cursor
2. The user performs a "cut" operation via key combination Ctrl+x (⌘+x for Macintosh
users), menu, or other means
3. Visibly, "cut" text immediately disappears from its location. "Cut" files typically change
color to indicate that they will be moved.
4. Conceptually, the text has now moved to a location often called the clipboard. The
clipboard typically remains invisible. On most systems only one clipboard location exists,
hence another cut or copy operation overwrites the previously stored information. Many
UNIX text-editors provide multiple clipboard entries, as do some Macintosh programs
such as Clipboard Master,[3] and Windows clipboard-manager programs such as
Microsoft Office.
5. The user selects a location for insertion by some method, typically by clicking at the
desired insertion point
6. A paste operation takes place which visibly inserts the clipboard text at the insertion
point. (The paste operation does not typically destroy the clipboard text: it remains
available in the clipboard and the user can insert additional copies at other points)
Whereas cut-and-paste often takes place with a mouse-equivalent in Windows-like GUI
environments, it may also occur entirely from the keyboard, especially in UNIX text editors,
such as Pico or vi. The most common kind of cutting and pasting without a mouse involves the
entire current line, but it may also involve text after the cursor until the end of the line and other
more sophisticated operations.
When a software environment provides cut and paste functionality, a nondestructive operation
called copy usually accompanies them; copy places a copy of the selected text in the clipboard
without removing it from its original location.
The clipboard usually stays invisible, because the operations of cutting and pasting, while
actually independent, usually take place in quick succession, and the user (usually) needs no
assistance in understanding the operation or maintaining mental context.

3. [edit] Copy and paste
The term "copy-and-paste" refers to the popular, simple method of reproducing text or other data
from a source to a destination. It differs from cut and paste in that the original source text or
data does not get deleted or removed. The popularity of this method stems from its simplicity
and the ease with which users can move data between various applications visually - without
resorting to permanent storage.
Copying often takes place in graphical user interface systems through use of the key-
combinations Ctrl+C, or by using some other method, such as a context menu or a toolbar
button. Once one has copied data into the area of memory referred to as the clipboard, one may
paste the contents of the clipboard into a destination using the key combinations Ctrl+V, or other
methods dependent on the system. Macintosh computers use the key combinations ⌘C and ⌘V.
The X Window System maintains an additional clipboard containing the most recently selected
text; middle-clicking pastes the content of this "selection" clipboard into whatever the pointer is
on at that time.
Most terminal emulators and some other applications support the key combinations Ctrl-Insert to
copy and Shift-Insert to paste. This is in accordance with the IBM Common User Access (CUA)
standard.
Some programs not only copy and paste text, but also edit it during the process, such as PureText
(designed by Steve Miller) which copies text from a table and removes the table during the
pasting process.