Selecting & Copying

In Text view, you can select a range of whole lines or a rectangular block of text, and copy it to the clipboard with Ctrl + C. Vaste reads the selected lines from the file when you copy, so a selection can cover lines that are not on screen.

Select a range of lines

1. Hold Shift and click the first line of the range. Nothing is highlighted yet.

2. Hold Shift and click the last line. The lines between the two clicks are highlighted, and the status bar shows how many lines are selected, for example 250 lines selected.

To change the end of the range, hold Shift and click another line. The first line of the range stays where it is. The two clicks can be far apart: scroll between them, or use Go to line.

A click without Shift makes a line the active line but does not clear the range. Press Esc to clear it. There is no keyboard selection and no select-all.

Select ranges in Text view. In Grep view, a range selects every line of the file between the two clicks, including the lines Grep view hides.

Select a block of text

To select a rectangle of text, such as one column of a fixed-width log, hold Alt and drag across the text. Word wrap must be off: with word wrap on, Vaste shows Turn off word wrap to use column selection. Press Alt + Z to turn word wrap off.

Starting a block clears a line range, and starting a line range clears a block. Press Esc to clear the block.

A block counts columns in characters. A tab counts as one character, so on lines that contain tabs, the copied text can differ from the highlighted area.

What Ctrl + C copies

Ctrl + C copies the first of these that applies:

1. In Hex view, the selected bytes. See Hex view.
2. In Table view, the selected rows, the active cell, or the active row when no cell is active. See Table view.
3. A block selection.
4. A line range.
5. Text you selected with the mouse inside a line.

When a text box has focus, such as the search box, Ctrl + C copies from the text box. After Vaste copies a block or a line range, it clears the selection. It does not show a message when the copy succeeds.

With the Canvas renderer setting on, you cannot select text inside a line with the mouse. Line ranges and blocks still work.

You can copy a line range of up to 100,000 lines, or a block of up to 10,000 lines. Each copied line is cut after its first 2,000 bytes, the part that Text view shows. To copy a longer line in full, use Copy line. See Limits.

Caution

If a line range or a block is over its limit, Vaste copies nothing and shows no message. The clipboard keeps its previous content. Select fewer lines, or use Export… in the search panel to save matching lines to a file.

Copied lines are joined with a newline (LF), whatever the file’s line endings.

Copy a single line

Right-click a line and select Copy line to copy that one line in full, up to 4 MiB. Use it for lines longer than the 2,000 bytes that Text view shows. If the line is longer than 4 MiB, Vaste shows the line’s size and the limit. If the clipboard refuses the text, Vaste shows Could not copy to the clipboard.

Copy in other views

• Hex view: copy selected bytes as hexadecimal.
• Columns and record view: copy a cell, or one or more rows as Markdown, JSON, or TSV.
• Working with results: copy or export every line that matches a search.

Next steps

• Scratchpad: collect copied lines and notes, and convert text
• Go to line: jump to a line before you start or end a selection