Using cut, copy and paste

You can use cut, copy and paste to edit content and move provisions, amendments and interstitial headings around a document or between documents.

Always use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V to paste. Ignore any menu or toolbar option for pasting as that will trigger Oxygen’s “paste special” feature which isn’t used in Lawmaker.

How to use cut/copy and paste with whole provisions, amendments and interstitial headings

Select the provision/amendment/interstitial heading, from the breadcrumb or Structure view, you would like to cut/copy using:

keyboard short cuts Ctrl + C (for copy) or Ctrl + X (for cut);
right-click context menu > Copy or > Cut (when mouse cursor is in Editor view and Structure view)
from the upper toolbar, select Edit > Copy or > Cut

Navigate to the part in the document that you would like to paste the cut/copied provision/amendment/interstitial heading and place the mouse cursor at the end of the provision you would like the cut/copied provision/amendment/interstitial heading pasted after

Use the keyboard short cut (Ctrl + V) to paste the provision/amendment/interstitial heading

Before your provision/amendment is pasted, a message will appear to let you know exactly what will happen (e.g. will a duplicate be created or will a new version be created) allowing you to continue with the paste or cancel

The system will attempt to paste the cut/copied provision/amendment/interstitial heading into the next valid location after the provision/amendment/interstitial heading the mouse cursor is placed in.

Hints and tips

Pasted provisions will be numbered according to the selected numbering mode:

Automatically Renumber Provisions will mean that subsections/schedule paragraphs and SI paragraphs and below will be automatically renumbered and all subsequent elements renumbered also.
Auto-assign mode means that the pasted elements will be numbered using the auto-assign rule e.g. 1A, A1 etc.

You can copy, cut and paste quoted structures by placing your cursor in the quoted structure and selecting “quoted structure” from the breadcrumb. To paste it, place your cursor in the provision you want your quoted structure to appear after and use the keyboard short cut Ctrl + v.

This works for amendments as well

To paste a provision before the first provision in a sequence, it can help to view block tags (see ‘Viewing tags’ to find out how). With tags visible, place your cursor before the starting tag of the first provision in the document and paste

The system will only let you cut or paste a provision if it can acquire a lock on the parent provision

You can select more than one provision in a cut/copy and paste operation. To do this, use multi-select in the Structure view (Ctrl + mouse click)

Multi-selecting provisions to cut/copy will only work for contiguous, sibling provisions e.g. sections 1-5

If you want to cut/copy more than one provision that do not appear back-to-back, you will need to do these as separate operations

The system will attempt to find the next valid location to paste a cut/copied provision after the provision the mouse cursor is placed in

It is possible to copy/cut provisions from one document and paste them into the same document or even another document from the same project or a document from a different project.

You can highlight the ‘body’ from the breadcrumb and copy all provisions in a document and paste them into the empty ‘body’ of another document

The system will check for duplicate references when it pastes so that means that

Cut provisions will maintain their unique references so that any cross references to the cut provision are maintained (assuming they are pasted back into the same document)

Copied provisions will be assigned new unique references to ensure any cross references to the copied provision(s) are not broken.

Amendments only

When pasting amendments into a document, the system will check what bill version the target document is associated with so that the amendment is pointing to the correct bill version. If the bill version was different, a new version of the amendment is created upon paste.

When pasting amendments into a document, the system will be checking for duplicate amendments with the same unique reference. If a duplicate exists, (e.g. if you copied an amendment from a list and pasted the copied amendment into the same list) the system will treat it as a new amendment