Blog & Social Media
Jul29

Make copy and paste easier by assigning extra mouse buttons

Categories // Other Stuff..., Microsoft Office, MS Word Print this Article

This is a great tip found on Lifehacker that is especially useful in law offices. As an appellate lawyer, I often copy text from other documents or sources into my briefs. Most lawyers do the same thing when constructing all sorts of legal documents. This task can be made easier by assigning extra mouse buttons to the copy and paste functions. Unless you have a very basic mouse (perhaps the one that came bundled with your computer), odds are your mouse has buttons you don't use. For example, I have a Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2 connected to my desktop PC. It has two extra "thumb" buttons on the left side plus, as is true of most mice with scroll wheels, the wheel can also be used as a separately programmed push button. I simply downloaded the latest version of the IntelliMouse driver software from Microsoft's web site, installed it, and assigned the large thumb button to Control>C for copy and the scroll wheel push button to Control>V for paste. Now I can copy and paste in my MS Word legal documents (or any PC application) entirely with the mouse without touching the keyboard of even right-clicking. Even slicker is the programming features of many Logitech mice. The Logitech software (unlike the IntelliMouse software - unless I am too dumb to locate the setting) allows you to assign functions to the left and right scroll wheel tilt (did you know that you can horizontally scroll by tilting the wheel? - well that may not be so useful with today's widescreen monitors unless you work with large spreadsheets, but it does let you move one character at a time left or right when working in Word). But you don't really need the mouse manufacturer's specialized driver. You can download and install the free Auto Hotkey utility to program special functions to your mouse buttons (and keyboard). Auto Hotkey is a little clunky to work with, but if you don't mind creating your own scripts (be sure to read the documentation for detailed instructions), it does the job.

This is a great tip found on Lifehacker that is especially useful in law offices. As an appellate lawyer, I often copy text from other documents or sources into my briefs. Most lawyers do the same thing when constructing all sorts of legal documents. This task can be made easier by assigning extra mouse buttons to the copy and paste functions. Unless you have a very basic mouse (perhaps the one that came bundled with your computer), odds are your mouse has buttons you don't use. For example, I have a Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2 connected to my desktop PC. It has two extra "thumb" buttons on the left side plus, as is true of most mice with scroll wheels, the wheel can also be used as a separately programmed push button. I simply downloaded the latest version of the IntelliMouse driver software from Microsoft's web site, installed it, and assigned the large thumb button to Control>C for copy and the scroll wheel push button to Control>V for paste. Now I can copy and paste in my MS Word legal documents (or any PC application) entirely with the mouse without touching the keyboard of even right-clicking. Even slicker is the programming features of many Logitech mice. The Logitech software (unlike the IntelliMouse software - unless I am too dumb to locate the setting) allows you to assign functions to the left and right scroll wheel tilt (did you know that you can horizontally scroll by tilting the wheel? - well that may not be so useful with today's widescreen monitors unless you work with large spreadsheets, but it does let you move one character at a time left or right when working in Word). But you don't really need the mouse manufacturer's specialized driver. You can download and install the free Auto Hotkey utility to program special functions to your mouse buttons (and keyboard). Auto Hotkey is a little clunky to work with, but if you don't mind creating your own scripts (be sure to read the documentation for detailed instructions), it does the job.

Print this Article

Comments (0)

Leave a comment

You are commenting as guest.

Cancel Submitting comment...