Edit menu
The Edit menu contains commands and actions for editing text.  Click Edit in the menu bar, or press Alt+e on your keyboard.  A menu with the following commands will appear:

Cut  .ec Cut selected text (clipboard).
Grab  .eg Grab selected text (clipboard).
Paste  .ep Paste buffer at cursor (clipboard).
Delete  .ed Delete selected text.
Buffer  .eb Buffer selected text.
Insert  .ei Insert buffer at cursor.
Erase  .ee Erase selected text.
Find  .ef .ef = .f (find: see notes).
_ _  .r (replace: see notes).
Read    .er [filename] Read file into clipboard.
Write    .ew [filename] Write selected clipboard.
Abandon   .ea Abandon edits of function.

You can execute any of these commands by selecting its name in the pull-down menu, or by typing the first letter of its name on your keyboard.  Or, you can execute them directly by entering dot commands from the preceding table.

selected text
Many Edit menu commands operate on selected text.  To select text, place the mouse cursor at the first character of the region you want to select, press the left button. Hold the button down while you move the mouse cursor past the last character in the region you want to select, then release the button.  The selected area will be highlighted in some visible way.  You can repeat the process as many times as you like until you select exactly the area you want.  You can cancel selections by placing the mouse cursor anywhere in the text area and clicking the left button.

You can also select text from the keyboard by holding down a shift key while you move the text cursor with the cursor control keys.

Graphical user interfaces have quick ways to select important sections of text.   Position the mouse cursor in a text area.  Click twice to select a word, three times to select a line, and four times to select all text, including text above and below the visible area.

Many of the Edit menu commands expect a selected area.  If no section of text is selected, these commands have no effect.

CutBuffer
The CutBuffer is a non-visible text storage area.  A copy of selected text is copied into the CutBuffer whenever Edit Cut or Edit Grab is executed.   Edit Paste copies the contents of CutBuffer into the text at the text cursor position.

The CutBuffer is the system clipboard, shared with all programs.  Thus you can copy text between applications with the clipboard. Cut, Grab, Paste from/to the CutBuffer and system clipboard are also performed by the following popular keystrokes :

  Delete - Ctrl+X keys - The Delete key
  Buffer - Ctrl+C keys - The Crtl + Insert key
  Insert - Ctrl+V keys - The Insert key