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5.6.2 Copy a passage into another buffer ¶

Emacs calls its remembered copied or cut text the kill ring. Copy with M-w and insert with C-y, called yank in Emacs. The names do not imply that copying deletes anything.

1. Select the middle sentence and its newline using the previous procedure. Hear it with C-e r, then press M-w. Emacsvox reports the copy; the source text stays in place and the mark is normally deactivated.
2. Press C-x b, choose an unused name such as evox-edit-notes, and run M-x text-mode RET. Check the buffer with C-e m. Use an empty buffer for this first copy, rather than inserting into an existing document.
3. Press C-y. Emacsvox speaks the inserted text. Point is after it and the mark is at its beginning, normally inactive. Immediately press C-e r to hear that range again; do not set a new mark first.
4. Return to evox-edit-source with C-x b and read the middle paragraph. It is still there. The destination contains an independent text copy.

For a real document, check the insertion point and deactivate any unrelated selection before pasting. A copied newline moves subsequent text to another line; a copied blank line can preserve paragraph separation. Inspect the surrounding text as well as the pasted passage before saving.

During the transfer, C-e m and C-e l are useful checks. Avoid C-e f for filename inspection and C-e a for message repetition at this point: those commands also put their result in the kill ring and can change the next paste. M-x emacsvox-speak-current-kill RET inspects the current entry without inserting it. Another application’s clipboard copy can also change what C-y inserts.

If the text goes to the wrong place, stop and use Recover a text edit before saving rather than pasting more copies. For the general commands, see Yanking and The kill ring in the GNU Emacs Manual. Keep a reference and a draft in separate windows offers another way to manage the two working contexts.