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Table Of Contents
When you paste an object, it is placed at either the position of the playhead or at the
beginning of the project, based on the Create Layers At setting in the Project pane of the
Motion Preferences. For more information, see Project Pane. For the purposes of simplicity,
the remainder of this section assumes you have set the Create Layers At to Current Frame.
The pasted object is placed in a new track at the top of the other layers in the active
group. If no group is selected, the object is pasted into the group it was copied from. If
it was copied from outside the current project, a new group is created.
Pasting multiple objects retains the relative object and layer order of the Clipboard
contents.
Objects with filters, behaviors, keyframes, and other effects retain those effects when cut,
copied, and pasted. You can also copy or cut filter and behavior objects from one media
layer and then paste them into another media layer, effectively transferring the effect to
a different media item.
To copy an object to the Clipboard
1 In the Timeline layers list, select the object to copy.
2 Choose Edit > Copy (or press Command-C).
To paste an object into the Timeline
1 In the Timeline layers list, select the group you to paste the object into.
2 Position the playhead at the desired time position.
3 Choose Edit > Paste (or press Command-V).
Paste Special
In addition to ordinary pasting, Motion lets you paste as an insert, overwrite, or exchange
edit. These three commands appear in the Paste Special dialog. Paste special can also be
used with selected regions in the Timeline to perform a special type of paste. For more
information, see Pasting into a Region Using the Paste Special Command.
Insert into time region: Pastes the Clipboard contents into the project, pushing existing
objects farther down in time.
Overwrite into time region: Pastes the Clipboard contents into the project, deleting any
existing objects at the same point in time.
Exchange media with existing object: Replaces the selected object in the project with
the Clipboard contents.
To paste an object as an insert edit
1 Select the group to paste the object into.
2 Position the playhead at the desired time position.
3 Choose Edit > Paste Special (or press Command-Option-V).
344 Chapter 8 Using the Timeline