Pro Tip: Drag and drop text between apps on iPad

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drag and drop text ipad
Dragging text works just like dragging anything else on iOS 11.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bug Do you want to grab a chunk of text from Safari and put it into your Notes app? Do you want to clip sections from a long Word document and comment on them in email? Or maybe you just want to collect snippets of text for research. If so, you should try drag-and-drop text on iPad.

It’s so easy and useful to put two apps side-by-side on one screen, and drag text between them, that you’ll wonder how you got by without it.

Drag and drop text on iPad

Ever since iOS 11, you’ve been able to drag and drop all kinds of things on the iPhone and iPad. But thanks to the iPad’s Split View, which puts two apps side-by-side on the same screen, you can also easily drag items between apps. One of those items is text. Take a look.

drag-and-drop text ipad
Drag and drop. So rad.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

All you need to do is:

  • Put two apps side-by-side on the iPad using Split View.
  • Select a word, sentence or paragraph in the source app.
  • Tap and hold on the selected text until it turns into a little box of text.
  • Drag it to the destination app and drop.

That’s it!

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