Pasting Objects


You can paste objects from the clipboard that were previously placed there by an earlier Cut or Copy operation. Pasting is most often the second half of a Cut-and-Paste or Copy-and-Paste operation.

To paste objects from the clipboard

  1. Choose Paste from the Edit menu. If the Paste feature is grayed in the menu, it means that there is no diagram data in the clipboard.
  2. A copy of the objects in the clipboard appears at the center of the screen.
    Move the new objects where you want them.
Once you paste objects, they remain in the clipboard so you can paste them repeatedly to create multiple copies.

You can also Paste graphics that were copied to the clipboard by other programs.  After copying a graphic from another program, simply use Paste just as described above.  This will work as long as the other program copies its graphics to the clipboard in a format that this program knows (WMF, EMF, BMP, DIB) - which is very likely.

The clipboard can contain the same information in several different formats at once.  Normally, when you use Paste as described above, this program chooses the best format automatically (or the one that the other program said was best).  However, there is also a way to choose exactly which format to paste:

To paste objects from the clipboard in a particular format

  1. Choose Paste As from the Edit menu and select from one of the available  formats "LanFlow Objects", "Picture", "Bitmap", or "Text". If a format is grayed in the menu, it means there is no such data in the clipboard.
  2. A copy of the objects in the clipboard appears at the center of the screen.
    Move the new objects where you want them.
Note that if you copy diagram objects and paste them as a picture, you can no longer edit the copy as if it were a diagram object.  However, this is a nice way to create your own complicated shapes very easily.


Pasting Text


Pasting text is special because it can be done in two ways.  One way is to enter text mode, position the caret in an existing figure or label at the point where you want text to appear, then choose Paste from the edit menu.  If you are not in text mode and you paste text into your diagram, a new label will automatically be created for you and positioned at the center of the screen with the text that was in the clipboard.  The style of this label will be the last label style you selected.