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Known Participant
October 4, 2006
Question

Duplicate objects without displacement

  • October 4, 2006
  • 4 replies
  • 700 views
If I select an object and Duplicate it, or Copy then Paste it, the copy is always displaced by a certain number of pixels to the right and down. Is there a way to make the copy appear exactly on top? I have tried holding down various keys (Ctrl, Shift) while performing the action but to no avail.
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4 replies

CatBandit
Inspiring
October 5, 2006
Good thinking! I do the same thing when beginning a large project. I "save as' a copy with only one slide containing every re-used element in the series, including their most used positions and other attributes ... and save it as (for instance) "my_movie _lib". The "_lib" portion is, of course, my filenaming convention telling me this is my "library" file for this movie series.
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Known Participant
October 5, 2006
Thanks for following up Larry. I did figure out the separate slide approach after the posting. I have a number of objects (mainly text captions) that get replaced (=refreshed from the viewer's perspective) a number of times along the timeline - I now keep one copy of these on another slide as a kind of 'staging' area, do the mods, copy and paste the updated version back to the original slide and adjust the timeline position of the new (overlapping) set of objects.
CatBandit
Inspiring
October 5, 2006
Hans, I was visiting with my friend and fellow community expert, Rick Stone, about your issue. Rick made me realize that what you are trying to do IS to "duplicate" the object, not copy-and-paste it, as I had assumed (notice my earlier warning that there is a difference between "copy-paste", and "duplication").

So again, any time you copy and paste to the same slide the action is treated as a duplication, and duplication always results in the object being placed slightly to the right, and below, the original object.

BUT ... you can get around this designed behavior if you wish. Just copy the object, and paste it to a different slide ... then copy it from that slide and paste it back to the original. That way, it will not be treated as a duplication, but rather, as a copy and paste - and the object will be placed at the exact location from which it was originally copied.

Hope this helps - and again, thanks to Rick for his help and advice on this one! Have a nice day, Hans.
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CatBandit
Inspiring
October 5, 2006
What version are you running? If it is the English localization, build #....1418, this shouldn't be happening. A Copy - Paste should deposit the object at exactly the same location as the original occupied on its slide (this is not true with the "Duplicate" command - just copy and paste). Be sure that the grid is turned off (or on, if it is off) and not activated.

Hope this helps.
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