What is copying and pasting? How do I do it in Procreate?

Copy and paste are shortcuts commonly used in computing that allow you to capture and duplicate content. A standard in digital art, copy, paste, cut and duplicate are available in Procreate, and this article explains how to use them.

Copy & Paste Menu

By default, the Copy & Paste menu can be summoned by swiping three fingers down the canvas at the same time. You can change this in Actions → Prefs → Gesture Controls → Copy & Paste.

This video demonstrates how to cut and paste a layer using the Copy & Paste menu:

1. Swipe three fingers down the canvas

2. Select your desired option, e.g. 'Cut'

3. Repeat the swipe gesture

4. Select your desired option, e.g. 'Paste'

This video shows the use of copy and paste on the same layer to duplicate the item to a new layer before moving it across the canvas:

This video shows how to use the Copy All function, which captures everything visible on the canvas to the clipboard:

The following video shows the use of the duplicate option, which acts like a copy and paste action, but with one tap:

The next video shows cut & paste, which removes the layer or selected area and immediately places it down as a new layer. As you’ll see in the example, this is useful for quickly separating elements on a layer:

No separate video for ‘paste’ - this option will simply place down whatever image you have in your clipboard as a separate layer above your primary layer in Procreate.

You can use it to paste images from within your canvases, from other canvases, or from outside of Procreate, as long as your iPad clipboard contains an image.

Actions → Add and Paste in the Gallery

The next video shows you how to access the copy and paste options in the Add tab of the Actions Menu , and how to paste an image to begin a canvas in Procreate:

As with the paste action in Procreate, you can use any image in the clipboard to bring in an image using the Clipboard option in the canvas presets menu. The ‘Copy canvas’ option in Actions → Add is equivalent to the ‘copy all’ option in the Copy & Paste menu.

Copy using Layer Options Menu

This video shows you how to use the Copy option in any layer’s Layer Options menu. This will copy the contents of the entire layer, or whatever you have isolated in a selection:

Copy and Paste using QuickMenu

You can copy and paste using QuickMenu, which is off by default.

To enable QuickMenu, head to Actions → Prefs → Gesture Controls → QuickMenu, then toggle on the way you want to invoke it. Check out this video if it's easier:

The next video demonstrates copying a layer with QuickMenu, setting up one of the radial options as ‘Paste’, then using this to paste the copied layer before moving it elsewhere in the artwork:

If you are struggling with copying and pasting, feel free to check out this section of the Handbook, or reach out to our team directly .