About Using the Clipboard

Cut Objects

Cutting deletes selected objects from the drawing and stores them on the Clipboard. The objects are now available to be pasted into other programs.

Copy Objects

You can use the Clipboard to copy part or all of a drawing into a document created by another application. The objects are copied in vector format, which retains the high resolution in other applications. The information stored in the Clipboard can then be pasted in other programs.

Paste Objects

Applications use different internal formats to store Clipboard information. When you copy objects to the Clipboard, information is stored in all available formats. When you paste the Clipboard contents into a drawing, the format that retains the most information is used.

However, you can override this setting and convert pasted information to AutoCAD format.

• Because it is the easiest format to edit, AutoCAD format is the preferred format for copying objects to and from the application. It retains all relevant object information, including block references and 3D aspects.
• The Windows metafile (picture) format contains screen vector information, and files can be scaled and printed without losing resolution. Use this format to paste objects into Windows applications that support WMF files. Metafiles pasted into the application are of higher resolution than bitmapped images (BMP files) but are not as easily manipulated as AutoCAD objects.

The color of an object doesn't change when copied to the Clipboard. For example, white objects pasted onto a white background won't be visible. Use the WMFBKGND and WMFFOREGND system variables to control whether the background or foreground is transparent for metafile objects pasted into other applications.

You can insert a linked or embedded object from the Clipboard into a drawing with PASTESPEC. If you convert pasted information to AutoCAD format, the object is inserted as a block reference. To edit the pasted information, use the EXPLODE command to explode the block reference into its component objects. When you convert a Windows metafile stored on the Clipboard to AutoCAD format, you may lose some scaling precision. To retain proper scaling, save objects in the original drawing as a block (WBLOCK), and then insert them into AutoCAD using INSERT.