The Windows Command Prompt
Sun May 10 5:00 pm EDT 2026xtmci@atomicmail.io
Table of Contents
Copying text from the Command Prompt
Select the text you want to copy and press Ctrl + C. Alternatively, press Enter after the selection.
On the other hand, to paste text from the clipboard into the Command Prompt, press Ctrl + V.
You can do the same thing with your mouse. After selecting the text, right-click your mouse to copy it.
When no text is selected, the right-clicking does the opposite job: It will paste the clipboard content into the Command Prompt. A little weird.
Splitting a single command over multiple lines
Use the ^ (caret) character. A caret at the end of a line in Windows batch files means that the command continues on the next line.
Trailing spaces after the caret are not permitted. Here is an example:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i input.mp3 ^
-codec copy -shortest ^
output.mp4