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Duplicate text sections via drag and drop System
If you hold down the Option key while drag & dropping text within the same window, you will get a duplicate of the selected text and not a cut & paste.

It started out as an experiment in Mail.app (formatting an email for reply), and so I tried it in Script Editor, TextEdit, Tex-Edit Plus, and Microsoft Word -- it worked in all of them. So if you need a quick duplicate of a section of text, just Option drag and drop it.

[robg adds: This makes sense, as the Option key in the Finder is the "duplicate" modifier. I had just never though to try it with a drag and dropped text selection...]
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Duplicate text sections via drag and drop
Authored by: lagroue on Jan 19, '05 10:32:13AM

Hey, guys, if you have spare time while in front of your mac, try pressing shift, option, command, and any combination on all of your mouse actions, you'll make many discoveries.

Usually, option is the more powerful, usually meaning "duplicate" on drag, and "all" on click (close all if option-click on window close box, minimize all, etc.)

MacOSX menu items change, also, sometimes, if you hold a modifier key. Example with option key in the Finder : Empty Trash... (asking confirmation) / Empty Trash (no confirmation)

There are too many hints of this kind for anybody to list them all.
Remember : only players become power users !



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Duplicate text sections via drag and drop
Authored by: osxpounder on Jan 19, '05 05:37:26PM

OOooh, yeah! I just tried this in Safari: click on File, then, while menu is open, hold down Option key. Try it on the Window menu, too. Hmm, I'm going to poke about with this more often. Thanks!

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osxpounder



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Duplicate text sections via drag and drop
Authored by: lagroue on Jan 26, '05 03:27:02AM

boooooh



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Duplicate text sections via drag and drop
Authored by: haumann on Jan 19, '05 02:55:27PM

I'm a little surprised that this is thought to be anything new. I can verify that Option-dragging a block of selected text within a document works (as described in the above hint) as far back as Mac OS 8.1 (and possibly even earlier).



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Duplicate text sections via drag and drop
Authored by: DanFrakes on Jan 19, '05 03:28:17PM

I believe this feature worked as far back as System 7.5 natively, and under System 7.0 and 7.1 via the Drag&Drop Extension (a.k.a. Macintosh Drag & Drop). So, yeah, it's been around a while ;) but it's one that few users seem to know about.



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This was in MacPaint 20 years ago
Authored by: Lectrick on Jan 19, '05 04:33:07PM

Since I've been a Mac user since 12/84, I can confirm with certainty that the "select-option-drag to duplicate" paradigm was established in the first version of MacPaint over 20 years ago! This is a very old paradigm indeed.

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In /dev/null, no one can hear you scream



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