Illustrator Can Finally Copy & Paste with Right Mouse Button Context Menu

[jochwat]

So it has only taken a couple of decades or so, but the sluggish wizards over at Adobe have finally made it possible to use the context menu to copy and/or paste a selected element in Adobe Illustrator. It might sound ridiculous to anyone who doesn't use Illustrator that a simple feature like this would be overlooked for so long (even though users have asked why it wasn't there, and when would it be there, for so many YEARS, even though there was already a context menu that would pop up with other useless shit), but trust me, it's true. Well, this morning I discovered that, without any fanfare, there is indeed a suite of copy and paste commands now in the selected-element context menu. In other words, if you clicked on a vector shape, placed bitmap, or selected some text, and then click the right mouse button, you'll be able to copy and paste it from a flyout menu.

I thought some of you might like to know.

-Joe

 

[myront]

Whole lot easier in Corel. Just saying.
The one I use is click and drag then hit the right mouse button before letting go.
other ways include:
click & drag shape & hit the spacebar
click then hit the + key on the number pad
cntrl+c - contrl+v
ctrl+d
I also have several macrof for other specialized copy/paste functions

 

[Bobby H]

Adobe Illustrator has long had the usual keyboard shortcuts for cutting, copying and pasting content via the clipboard. Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work just fine in Illustrator. Unlike CorelDRAW the Ctrl+V command will paste the content in the center of the current view of the artboard which is mostly useless. CorelDRAW pastes content in the same position from which it was copied. To do that in Adobe Illustrator you have to use the Ctrl+F (Paste In Front) command.

 

[Print1]

Adobe Illustrator has long had the usual keyboard shortcuts for cutting, copying and pasting content via the clipboard. Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work just fine in Illustrator. Unlike CorelDRAW the Ctrl+V command will paste the content in the center of the current view of the artboard which is mostly useless. CorelDRAW pastes content in the same position from which it was copied. To do that in Adobe Illustrator you have to use the Ctrl+F (Paste In Front) command.

You can also dictate where you want it to paste with options, that’s been around forever.

 

[Bobby H]

I suppose it's a nice option to have cut-copy-paste options in a right-click fly-out menu I'm just a lot faster clicking the various keyboard shortcuts with my left hand (Paste in Place and Paste on All Artboards is a little tricky doing with one hand).

One area where I'm definitely a lot faster in CorelDRAW than Adobe Illustrator: aligning objects. Two factors are at work there. The first is CorelDRAW by default treats the last object shift-clicked into a selection as a key object that stays locked in place for any alignment commands. Illustrator requires an extra click to set a key object. The other factor is keyboard shortcuts. CorelDRAW has a standard set of alignment commands that are pretty easy to remember. Illustrator doesn't have any keyboard shortcuts applied to alignment commands. Illustrator will let you define keyboard shortcuts for various alignment commands, but the "R," "L," "T," "B," "C" and "E" alignment shortcuts in CorelDRAW are used by other tools and commands in Illustrator. I've also been requesting it for some time, but Illustrator doesn't have options to align or distribute text objects by their baselines. CorelDRAW has that option.

 

[White Haus]

Whole lot easier in Corel. Just saying.
The one I use is click and drag then hit the right mouse button before letting go.
other ways include:
click & drag shape & hit the spacebar
click then hit the + key on the number pad
cntrl+c - contrl+v
ctrl+d
I also have several macrof for other specialized copy/paste functions

Wow, thanks for this! I use the spacebar trick all the time but hate having to delete the extra copy everytime.

That first trick with right click while dragging is going to come in handy.

I also use right click & drag then "copy here" quite a bit.

 

[jochwat]

Yep, I'm aware of all the other cut/paste shortcuts. It's just weird that there's been a right-click context menu all this time that didn't include copy/paste. I've been working with computer software for so long (as far back as when it was still called "software"... or "programs"), that sometimes I'll just be staring at the screen with my head propped up in my left hand while the other hand works the mouse, and it just seemed natural to right-click an object, expecting to be able to copy it from the fly-out menu... then suddenly realizing it's STILL NOT AN OPTION... so when it happened the other day, and I saw Cut / Copy / Paste, I did a double-take, and then wondered how long that had been there.

I still mainly use keyboard shortcuts for everything that I can remember the shortcut for, but every so often while lazily working (there's an oxymoron for ya), I'll right-click that button and see what I can accomplish.

 

[ewded]

Yep, I'm aware of all the other cut/paste shortcuts. It's just weird that there's been a right-click context menu all this time that didn't include copy/paste. I've been working with computer software for so long (as far back as when it was still called "software"... or "programs"), that sometimes I'll just be staring at the screen with my head propped up in my left hand while the other hand works the mouse, and it just seemed natural to right-click an object, expecting to be able to copy it from the fly-out menu... then suddenly realizing it's STILL NOT AN OPTION... so when it happened the other day, and I saw Cut / Copy / Paste, I did a double-take, and then wondered how long that had been there.

I still mainly use keyboard shortcuts for everything that I can remember the shortcut for, but every so often while lazily working (there's an oxymoron for ya), I'll right-click that button and see what I can accomplish.

I bet you type with your pointer finger

 

[jochwat]

I bet you type with your pointer finger

I typed this with the finger to the right of it.