Pasting Objects

When you paste an object in PowerDesigner, you transfer all of its properties from the Clipboard and create a new object, and not a graphical synonym or a new instance of the copied object.

You can paste objects into the following locations:

A container node (folder, model or package) in the Browser
A diagram
A list of objects
An external application

Select Edit > Paste from the PowerDesigner menu bar.

Press ctrl + V on the keyboard.

Right-click and select Edit > Paste from the contextual menu of an object.

Open a list of objects, select a line in the list and Press ctrl + V on the keyboard.

Note:

When you hold down the ctrl key during a drag and drop operation, you obtain the same result as a copy/paste operation.

If you paste the selected object into an external application, the following will occur:

Copied item	Paste result
Diagram symbol	Image of the symbol (MS Word, PaintBrush)
List item from an object list	List in CSV format (MS Word, Excel)
Item from the Check Result list	List in CSV format (Excel)
Item from the Find Result list	List in CSV format (Excel)

Pasting a Shortcut
You can copy a shortcut and paste it in another model or package, the result is a shortcut with the same properties as the original shortcut.
Pasting an Object as a Shortcut
When you copy an object you can also paste it as a shortcut in a referencing model or package.
Managing Paste Conflicts
When you paste an object in PowerDesigner, checks are applied in order to verify that no conflict occurs between the identifying properties of the objects. The identifying criteria depends on the type of object, for some objects it is just the code, for others, the name and the code.

Parent topic: Moving, Copying, and Deleting Objects