Sometimes we old-timers stick with old methods to do everything, like selecting the Move and Copy commands for those functions. When precision is required, this is the way to go. However, for quick repositioning of objects “by eye”, selecting them first and dragging them to the new location is a lot faster. This is a particularly good technique for last minute repositioning of text labels on a map, once all of the other elements are in place, where absolute precision is less important than fast “clean-up” editing for legibility.
Need a quick copy of a label to paste in several locations to identify a large area or long polyline? Simply hold the CTRL key down AFTER you begin dragging, and the original object will remain in place. Don’t touch the CTRL key before you begin dragging, or AutoCAD will think you want to add additional objects to the selection set.
Prefer menus to keyboarding? Once you have an object selected, pick it with the RIGHT mouse button and then drag. Once you release the button at the new location, you will get a small shortcut menu offering three options: Move Here, Copy Here or Paste As Block.
Be careful with Paste As Block, though. It creates a new block with an automatically chosen (long, ugly and non-descriptive) block name. You will probably want to edit it when you are done, so you might as well copy and create blocks using the block editor.
