COPY/PASTE ON MACBOOK PRO WITHOUT A MOUSE

You can use certain gestures on a Mac trackpad like a two finger click to bring up the context menu with the copy option.

You can also assign actions to the corners of the track pad if you want by going System Preferences ➜ Trackpad and Mouse ➜ Secondary Click

click here ➜ Use Multi-Touch gestures on your Mac - Apple Support

and

click here ➜ Change Trackpad preferences on Mac - Apple Support

Not sure I understand what you are asking then.

To highlight text you can simply click at the beginning of the text you want to select and hold down on the trackpad and then drag your finger across to select the text. You don't have to position yourself anywhere specifically on the trackpad or the text. Just click, hold down and drag. Once you have a section of text highlighted, you can two-finger click on it to bring up the copy option.

You can also double click to select a word, or triple click to select a line or paragraph.

Use the keyboard:

Highlight the word

Command + C to copy

Command + V to paste

If your Trackpad is not working correctly then try using a USB mouse. If a USB mouse works, then you have a hardware issue with the built-in Trackpad which will need repaired. If the USB mouse also does not work, then try rebooting the laptop into Safe Mode to see if it makes any difference. If Safe Mode works fine, then you have some sort of software issue.

Try running the Apple Diagnostics. When you get the screen for the diagnostics to accept the EULA, then see if your Trackpad will click then link to accept the terms. If the Trackpad works outside of macOS, then you most likely have some sort of software or configuration issue with your macOS installation.

It is not clear from your posts whether the Trackpad click works at all like to interact with the menu bar or whether it is just not working for certain things like highlighting text. Very important to make this distinction. Sometimes it is not possible to select text within some apps or from some windows. So knowing exactly which app you are trying to select text may also be important (and where within that app as well).

Edit: It also helps to know the exact model of your Mac and version of macOS being used. You can get this information by clicking the Apple menu and selecting "About This Mac", or if you cannot interact with the menu you can get the exact model by entering the system serial number here:

Find the serial number of your Apple product - Apple Support

Marilou0121 wrote:

Re 'If your Trackpad is not working correctly then try using a USB mouse. If a USB mouse works, then you have a hardware issue with the built-in Trackpad which will need repaired.' - The mouse works fine, so it looks like there maybe a problem with the trackpad. Or, I need to do/activate something but not sure what.

Sounds like the built-in Trackpad is failing which is somewhat more common with the MBPro 13" (mid-2012) models than any other model.

Re ' to accept the EULA' - what does this mean?

If you booted into the Apple Diagnostics you would see that you are presented with one or two questions requiring confirmation before being able to start the diagnostics. One of which is like a terms & conditions which must be accepted before proceeding further.

Re 'whether the Trackpad click works at al' - it doesn't, or I don't know how to make it 'click', is it the same as 'tap'? (I assume not, I'm assuming I should do something which would make the trackpad actually click like it does on my Windows laptop).

There is a physical Trackpad switch which requires physical pressure to move the Trackpad down to trigger the physical switch, but you can also configure the Trackpad System Preferences to allow Tapping if you prefer a light tap to select items.

I have a Macbook Pro 9,2 (mid 2012), macOS Catalina v. 10.15.7.

If the Trackpad issue involves moving the pointer, then most likely the Trackpad is failing which is somewhat common with this exact model laptop.

If the Trackpad issue only involves the physical clicking, then there could be two issues. One is dirt and/or liquid has gotten stuck around or beneath the Trackpad making it impossible for physical movement of the Trackpad. The other possibility is the physical Trackpad switch has failed.

Since a mouse works, then at least the issue is unlikely to be due to any software issues so there must be a physical issue with the Trackpad which will need to be repaired.

Edit: EULA == End User License Agreement

Marilou0121 Said:

"COPY/PASTE ON MACBOOK PRO WITHOUT A MOUSE: On my Windows laptop I can click the bottom left of the trackpad to position my pointer, then click the bottom right > Copy. Then I can open my blog, right click > Paste. How can I do this (ie without a mouse) on my MacBook Pro?"

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Selecting Items:

A. Highlighting:

Use the shift key to select adjoining charters.

B. Use a Screenshot:

Some apps don't permit Copy & Paste. If you want to select something in an app that does not have the option to copy, then take a screenshot, and select the items in the screenshot as a way to copy it. Se Here: Take a Screenshot on your Mac - Apple Support

Marilou0121 wrote:

> That's exactly what I am looking for, 'a physical Trackpad switch which requires physical pressure to move the Trackpad down to trigger the physical switch' - thanks for the correct terminology. How do you get this to work?

> There is indeed no physical movement of the trackpad...

Then most likely dirt and/or liquid has gotten between the gaps around the Trackpad and is blocking or gumming up the movement of the Trackpad which I find is very common with our organization's laptops. Sometimes it may be possible to get a piece of Post-It Note into the gap to attempt to clear some of it, but this is not easy to do and usually doesn't do too much (some of the areas are blocked so the paper cannot be inserted in some small sections). The Trackpad on the non-Retina models can be removed to facilitate easier cleaning, but I would recommend having a repair tech do this since the Trackpad is mounted using thin flexible spring metal which is easily bent. Only the screws holding the Trackpad to the main laptop frame need to be removed. The screws attaching the spring metal to the Trackpad section should not be removed or it makes alignment so much harder. The screws are very small (#00 or #000 Phillips), plus the Trackpad needs to be aligned within the opening after reinstalling it.

> Hmmm, ok. Do I still need to do the Apple Diagnostics?

Not for the Trackpad click issue since the diagnostics don't check that. The diagnostics was mainly to see whether the Trackpad issue occurred outside of the OS, but also to make sure no other hardware issues were detected.

NB. It would be easier to reply if I could do it within your text, after the relevant paragraph, instead of copying it and then replying each time. Do you know if this is possible?

After using the "Quote" tool, you can put the cursor at the end of a line and press "Return" once or twice to break apart the quoted section to allow posting a response beneath the smaller quoted section like I have done here. The editing window is a bit finicky, so you may find extra blank lines being added to the next quoted section. It just means you have to edit the quoted section a bit to clean it up. You can delete quoted sections that you don't care about to quote.

You can click anywhere on the trackpad, like you do just to open an app or select something .

There is no specific location on the trackpad for this.