To cut or copy text that you can edit (like an outgoing email message or a note), double-tap a word to highlight it. A Cut | Copy | Paste | Suggest box pops up. To select more words, drag the blue dots on either end of the selected word. Then tap the Cut or Copy command. (If you select more than one word, you don’t see the Suggest option; the next page has more on that.)

For pages you can’t edit (like incoming emails), hold your finger down until you see a magnifying glass and insertion-point cursor. Drag it to the text you want to copy. When you lift your finger, a Select or Select All box appears. Select highlights the underlying word and displays the blue dots so you can include more text or photos. Select All highlights everything on-screen. Either way, lift your finger to get a Copy button. Web pages work a little differently: When you lift your finger there, you skip the “Select” options and go right to the Copy button, as shown above. The Define option opens the iPad’s dictionary; see Use the iPad’s Global Dictionary for more on word lookup.