Business Glossary

on the Macintosh and in Windows and OS/2, a holding area to which information can be copied in order to transfer it from one application program to another. For instance, the Clipboard can be used to transfer text from a word processor into a drawing program.

The contents of the Clipboard vanish when the computer is turned off. Also, in most software, only one item at a time can be on the Clipboard; the next cut or copy command will replace the old item with a new one.

a computer holding area that temporarily stores information cut or copied from a document. Both macintosh and windows operating systems support this feature.