ISPF is probably the most powerful and widely used text editor in existence, as anyone who has ever also used UNIX's vi or the old PC edlin can testify. Somehow IBM managed to avoid adding the useful cut and paste functionality to ISPF. They did however provide the edit macro facility that can be used to implement cut and paste functions. There is a set of CUT and PASTE edit macros that are available on the mainframe, but they are limited in their usefulness because they can not cut and paste between applications. They are also cumbersome to use because of size limits and the destructive nature of the paste macro. For example, try using the PASTE macro twice. Frequently an ISPF user needs to cut from a member in a PDS and paste into a LIBRARIAN member. A more user friendly set of edit macros is now available for general use in MCIT. There are actually two sets of macros that function identically except that they store their cut data into separate QSAM files to enable cutting and pasting of two different sets of data. The use of a QSAM file, rather than the ISPF PROFILE, to store the cut data, cut and paste between applications is enabled. An obvious use of two independent sets of cut and paste macros is the ability to cut and paste 'WORKING-STORAGE' data separately from 'PROCEDURE DIVISION' code. The first set of cut and paste macros consists of DRC (cut), DRP (paste), & DRA (append). The second set is DRC2, DRP2, and DRA2. The following discussion uses DRC, DRP, and DRA, but it applies to the DRC2 set also. The DRC macro copies or moves a set of records from a member in edit mode and stores them into a permanent disk file, 'userid.CUTPASTE.DATA'. The DRP macro can then be used to copy the stored set of records into any other member in edit mode. Since the DRC macro is destructive, a third macro, DRA, is available to add blocks of records to the end of any previously cut records. DRC and DRA use the ISPF line commands C, Cn, CC, M, Mn, and MM to designate which records to store. DRP uses the line commands A and B to designate where to paste the stored records. Since the DRP macro is NOT destructive, the same cut records can be pasted as many times as necessary without re-cutting. A benefit of storing the cut records on permanent disk files also enables a user to paste records from previous ISPF sessions, days or even years apart. Another benefit of the disk file is the ability to edit it after cutting and before pasting. All of the macros will display a help screen when invoked within the ISPF editor as a primary command with the parameter ?. There is no limit on the number of records that can be cut from a member except for the limit based on the physical size of the QSAM file. The default allocation is (TRK,(3,1)), but a file of any size may be pre-allocated to allow for cutting very large blocks of records.