Patent ID: 7559033

Claim:
A method for selecting non-contiguous text data in documents displayed on a display device, comprising the steps of: clicking a toggle button in a graphical user interface in order enable a multi-portion selection mode; designating a first text portion of a first displayed document for selection by highlighting the first text portion, the first highlighting comprising the steps of: (a) moving a mouse pointer to the beginning of the first text portion; (b) pressing and holding a left mouse button; (c) dragging the mouse pointer to the end of the first text portion; and (d) releasing the left mouse button; without any intervening action, designating a second text portion of a second displayed document for selection by highlighting the second portion, the second highlighting comprising the steps of: (a) moving the mouse pointer to the beginning of the second text portion; (b) pressing and holding the left mouse button; (c) dragging the mouse pointer to the end of the second text portion; and (d) releasing the left mouse button; saving the first text portion to a clipboard; saving the second text portion to the clipboard; and without any intervening steps, actuating a direct save mechanism to save the first and second text portions to a single, named file wherein: the highlighted first text portion and the highlighted second text portion are displayed simultaneously; and the first displayed document is in a first software application and the second displayed document is in a second software application different from said first software application.