How to copy and paste.

Last month, the Grape Vine update went out in a new format, and I was very surprised that among the overwhelmingly positive feedback I had, a few of you said  "But it takes too much paper and ink to print out." Print it out? You really REALLY don't need  to do that! Many of the competitions listed in the update are to be entered by email or online, and if you click on the links in the email you receive, they will take you straight to the website or open up an email for you, ready to send your entry. If you print it out and then try to copy the links by hand, you could make mistakes, and a website link with a typo in it simply won't work.

But I realise that sometimes you want to sit down in an armchair, away from the computer, and do the postal or text entry competitions, or have a printed list of packs and entry forms to look out for while shopping - so why not save yourself LOTS of paper and ink, and only print what you need?

To do this, all you need to do is to copy and paste the relevant parts of the update into whatever programme you like to use - maybe Word, or possibly an email to yourself  - and then save it to print out when you are ready to do so.

And  when I  suggested that, several people then said "But how do I do that?". There wasn't space in the November Grape Vine for me to tell you how to do it, it was so packed with competitions, so here are the instructions.

First of all, open the document you want to copy FROM and the one you want to copy TO. Then use your mouse to position the cursor just before the first word you want to copy. Hold down the left button on the mouse, move to the end  of the last word you want to copy, and let go. Now you will see that section of text is highlighted.

Next you have a choice of things to do:

1.  Click the right mouse button. A menu will appear at the side of the highlighted  text. Select "Copy" from it. Now go over to  where you want to paste the text and  click the right mouse button again.  This  time select "Paste" and your chosen text will appear in your new document, where you can  save it, email it or print it out.

2. Look at the top of your screen. Whatever programme you are using, one of the headings there - usually "Edit" -  will contain the word  "Copy". Selecting this will copy your highlighted text. Move to your new  document, and, from the menu at the top (in Word, this is the Edit menu near the left) select "Paste" and your text will appear.

3. Hit the "Ctrl" key (on the bottom left of your keyboard)  at the same time as the letter C to copy the text, then move to your new document and hit  the Ctrl key again but this time at the same time as the letter V.  This too will paste your text.

You can combine any of the copying methods with any of the pasting methods, so you could copy by right-clicking and paste by using Ctrl-V if you like - whatever suits the programme you  are using and seem to be most convenient to you.

Once you have the hang of it, you will find that it isn't just helpful for copying bits of the update - you can

• copy information that you want to save from web pages
• copy text from one email to another, if you want to pass it on to a friend without forwarding the whole message
• copy web addresses into your address bar on those annoying times when they won't click
• copy the whole of this blog post into a document to save for when you want to refer back to it!
• and many, many more uses.

I know that many of you will  think I am teaching my grandmother to suck eggs (actually, as far as I know my grandmother never once had the urge to suck an egg, and I wouldn't know how to do it anyway!) but for every one of you who is experienced and confident with computers, there  are at least a dozen who struggle rather nervously through everything to do with them, and I'll always do my best to use plain English to help compers in that position!

Many thanks to my husband Mark for the photos; my camera just isn't man enough for the job. And  if you want to see more of his brilliant photography, mostly on gardening and food themes, with lovely pictures of our granddaughter too,  why not take a look at his blog?