On the Windows platform, Arbortext Editor enables you to copy content from other applications and paste the content into your document using matching markup from your document type. For example, assume you are authoring a DITA document and copy a bullet list in a Microsoft Word document. When you paste that list into your DITA document, it will be pasted with the appropriate ul and li tags.

You can copy content from Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker, web browsers, text editors, and other applications and paste that content into your document. Arbortext Editor uses Arbortext Import/Export technology to map the content from the other application to the markup appropriate for your document. There might be a slight delay for the first paste, where you will see Building paste results displayed on the status bar. Arbortext Editor includes support for the most common document constructs and default document types by default. If necessary, your system administrator can enhance and customize this feature for custom document types, custom Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker styles, and so forth.

Besides the automatic copy and paste support, you can control how content from other applications is pasted into your document through the Paste Special dialog box. After you have copied content from another application, you can select Edit > Paste Special to open the dialog box and select how you want the content to be pasted into your document. If the markup you are trying to paste is not valid at the paste location, the Invalid Paste Structure dialog box opens. This dialog enables you to view the markup that Arbortext Editor is trying to paste into the document. The dialog also enables you to copy and paste all or part of that markup into your document.

Note that CTRL+SHIFT+V always pastes clipboard content as if it were plain text.

By default, the following types of clipboard formats are supported by this feature:

You can change the types of clipboard formats that are supported for this feature with the pastesource advanced preference. To change this preference, select Tools > Preferences, select the Advanced button on the Preferences dialog box, and change the value of the pastesource preference to the formats you want to support.

If you copy and paste part of a Microsoft Word document that contains embedded graphics, those graphics are not embedded in your XML document. Instead, they are removed from the Word document, stored on the file system, and referenced from your XML document. By default, the graphics are stored in your Windows Application Data directory. For example, if your Windows home directory is on the C: drive, the graphics would be stored in C:\Document and Settings\Your Login\Application Data\PTC\Arbortext\Editor\pastegraphics.

You can change the directory where the graphics are stored with the pastegraphicspath advanced preference. If you do not want to change the location of the directory, it is recommended that you also add this directory to your Graphics path in the Preferences dialog box. If the value of pastegraphicspath is in your graphics path, references to the embedded graphics will be relative. Otherwise, the graphic file references will be full paths.