We start with the typical use case when copying values from one object to multiple other objects.

Select one object (Symbol or Line Segment). You will notice the grey button in the toolbar.

If you click on the button, you will get a column of checkboxes. You are now in Copy mode. If you select multiple objects the checkboxes will disappear, because you can only copy from one object.

You can also use the dropdown buttons to switch to between the modes.

The ACAD tab doesn't show any checkboxes, because the PropertiesPalette doesn't handle the AutoCAD Properties.

If you switch to other tabs you see the checkboxes as well.

You can select any checkbox whose property will be copied later.

If you switch between tabs the selected checkboxes from another tab are checked on all tabs where the property appears.

If you click on the green button you will toggle to the Paste mode which allows you to copy the values into other objects. You can use the dropdown buttons too.

The button will change to red to indicate the Paste mode the PropertiesPalette is in.

Now you select the target objects (in this image K-002, K-003).

You could unselect the source object (K-001), but since this object, but because this object already has the values in the properties nothing will happen to this source object.

You see only checkboxes for the properties you checked before.

If you click on the red button again, the values will finally be copied from the source into the target objects.

The button will remain red which allows you to select another set of objects and click on the red button again to copy the values into the next objects. You can even switch to another drawing and copy the values in objects in the other drawing.

To deactivate the Copy & Paste mode you can simple double-click on the red/green button. Or you use the dropdown buttons again.

Remark: You should deactive the Copy & Paste mode to not accidentially copy values.

Remark: You can use CTRL+Z to undo the pasted values. This will undo ALL pasted values at once and not one by one.

Not the Copy & Paste mode is deactivated and all checkboxes disappeared.

If you activate the Copy & Paste mode again, the previously selected checkboxes will be restored. Only when you switch the project or close Plant 3D are the settings lost.

Remark: Even if you have Copy & Paste mode activated, you can edit data.
 

In addition to selecting individual checkboxes you can also use the context menu.

You can use Select all to copy.

Which selects all checkboxes on the active tab.

With Unselect all for copying...

...all checkboxes will be unselected.

If you selected some checkboxes and you use Invert Selection for copying...

... which will unselect the already selected checkboxes and will select the previously unselected boxes.

If you select a property from the source object which doesn't exist in the target objects, then the value can obviously not be pasted into the target object.

However, there can be cases were a property exists in both source and target objects, but the property is not shown for the target object in the PropertiesPalette.

In this example, we have 4 properties Tech Data 1 to 4 which are all selected from the compressor symbol.

When switching to paste mode and selecting the heat exchanger Tech Data 3 and 4 are not shown, because the Tech Data tab of the PropertiesPalette for the heat exchanger doesn't contain those two properties.

Therefore only Tech Data 1 and 2 are pasted into the heat exchanger.

If we look on the P&ID tab for the heat exchanger (here the properties Tech Data 3 and 4 are shown) you will see, that Tech Data 3 and 4 are empty.

Properties which are read-only can still be selected from the source object.

However, properties which are read-only in the target object will not show a checkbox, because nothing can be pasted into a read-only property.

Remark: The reason for showing checkboxes for read-only properties in the source object is, that the property in the target object may not be read-only.

When pasting values into a target project which uses an acquisition rule the Copy & Paste function can change the acquisition mode of the property.

Whether the acquisition mode can be modified depends on the setting Allow changing acquisition mode when pasting in the PlantExpressTools Settings dialog (see PropertiesPalette). Make sure that this checkbox is enabled if you want to allow the change of the acquisition mode when pasting.

If the box is not enable, than you will see the checkbox in a kind of tri-state mode with a descriptive tooltip letting you know, that you have to change the acquisition mode yourself if needed.

Let's copy the Size from the valve HA-101.

Click on the button to switch to Paste mode and select valve HA-102. You see *VARIES* because both valves have different values.

If we click on the button again to copy the size 100 to HA-102 we see that 100 appears instead of *VARIES* and that the acquisition state icon shows acquire and override.

If we unselect HA-101 we see, that the state for the target valve HA-102 shows override, because the line segment has no Size.

Now let's use a different example were the valve HA-102 is already set to override, because it has a different Size than the line segment.

We start again with valve HA-101.

When we select HA-102 when being in Paste mode we see the combined acquire/override mode.

If we click on the Paste button again to paste the value in the target object, we see, that HA-102 shows 100 now, but we also see, that the acquisition mode icon shows only Acquire.

When unselecting HA-101 to only see the data of HA-102 we see, that the acquisition mode indeed was changed to Acquire, because the value which would have been pasted from the source valve HA-101 (100) is the same value which would be acquired from the line segment of HA-102. Therefore, instead of copying the value 100 into the valve HA-102 the function just changed the acquisition mode to Acquire.