- Setting Selection Preferences
- Making Selections
- Using the Clipboard
- Resizing Graphic Elements
- Positioning Graphic Elements
- Flipping, Rotating, and Skewing
- Distorting Graphic Elements
- Modifying Fills and Strokes
- Modifying Shapes: Natural Drawing Tools
- Modifying Shapes: Bzier Tools
- Modifying Primitive-Shape Paths
- Converting Shape Types
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using the Clipboard
Flash supports the standard cut, copy, and paste operations familiar to most computer users. Flash also provides special pasting operations for graphic elements; you can paste items in the center of the Stage or in their original location.
To perform basic editing operations
- Select the elements you want to delete, cut, or copy.
- From the Edit menu (Figure 4.15), choose one of the following:
- To delete the selection, choose Clear, or press the Delete key.
- To cut the selection, choose Cut, or press
-X (Mac) or Ctrl-X (Windows). - To copy the selection, choose Copy, or press -C (Mac) or Ctrl-C (Windows).
After you cut or copy an item, it resides on the Clipboard until your next cut or copy operation. To retrieve the Clipboard's contents use one of the Paste commands.
Figure 4.15 The Edit menu offers all the basic cut, copy, and paste commands for working with graphic elements.
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To paste the Clipboard's contents in the center of the window
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Choose Edit > Paste in Center, or press
-V (Mac) or Ctrl-V (Windows).Flash pastes the Clipboard's contents in the center of the current view (Figure 4.16).
Figure 4.16 When you copy a selected graphic element (top) and choose Edit > Paste in Center, Flash pastes a copy of the element from the Clipboard to the center of the current view (bottom).
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To paste the Clipboard contents in their original location
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Choose Edit > Paste in Place, or press shift-
-V (Mac) or Ctrl-Shift-V (Windows).Flash pastes the Clipboard contents to their original location on the Stage. The value of this command becomes more apparent when you work with layers and animation; it can be crucial to have elements appear in precisely the same spot but on a different layer or frame.
TIPs
- The Duplicate command is another way to make copies. Select the elements you want to copy. Choose Edit > Duplicate, or press -D (Mac) or Ctrl-D (Windows). Flash creates a copy of the selected items. The duplicate appears on the Stage, offset from the original item. The duplicate is selected, to prevent a merge-shape duplicate from interacting with the original. (For more information on interaction between elements, see Chapter 5.) The Duplicate command doesn't change the contents of the Clipboard.
- Using the selection tool, Option-click (Mac) or Alt- or Ctrl-click (Windows) and drag any single element to create a copy. Be sure to keep the modifier key down until the copy appears.
- You can drag to duplicate multiple items: first select them, then use the selection tool or lasso tool, Option-click (Mac) or Alt- or Ctrl-click (Windows) and drag the selection to create a copy.