Drag and Drop
Mac Tip #82/11-Dec-2002

Dragging is the art of holding down the mouse button while you move the cursor. It can take a bit of practice to become good at it.

Dropping in this context means releasing the mouse button.

Dragging and dropping means you can “pick up” an item and move it to a new location (dragging) where you “put it down” (dropping).

Drag and drop is an integral part of using a Mac. You could use this feature in many ways, for example:

• drag and drop a document from one folder into another
• drag a letter, word, paragraph or any selection of text from one place in a document to another place. This works in MS Word, AppleWorks, Eudora email software and many many other applications.
• drag a document onto an application icon to open the document with that application. For example, if you have a text document drag it onto the icon or MS Word and it will open into Word, whereas if you simply double-clicked it then it would probably open into SimpleText or TextEdit.
• drag a text clipping into an open window of a document to include that text in your document. See Text Clippings (Mac Tip #32/05-Dec-2001) for more detail on text clippings.
• drag a jpg or gif file into the open window of Internet Explorer, Netscape or Opera to view a picture.
• drag a document you want to attach onto an email message window to attach it.
• drag a folder of photos onto the iPhoto window to import them
• drag an URL from the Address Bar of Internet Explorer to the desktop to make a clickable icon which will take you straight back to that page in future.

Try it out in all kinds of places.