Applications that support DDE usually provide an easy way to initiate DDE conversations using the Windows clipboard. If an application can function as a DDE client, it will almost always have a "Paste Link" or "Paste Special" command in its main menu (usually in an "Edit" menu). DDE server applications will likewise have a "Copy" command in their main menu (also in an "Edit" menu).

Note: The presence of a "Copy" command in a program does not necessarily mean the program can act as a DDE server.

To initiate a DDE conversation, you would open up the server application and select the data to be linked using your mouse (the contents of an Input Data Field text box in the WinWedge Window for example) and then "Copy" the data to the clipboard by selecting "Copy" in its Edit menu. Next, you would open up the client application and click your mouse in the position where you would like the "Linked" data to appear (a cell in a spreadsheet for example) and then choose "Paste Link" or "Paste Special" from the client application's Edit menu.

If the Cut & Paste Link process is successful, the data from the server will appear in the client application from that point on until the link is terminated as the result of ending either the client or the server application. That's all there is to it! No messing about with Application Names, Topics or Items because all that information is hidden away and passed implicitly through the Windows clipboard.

Note: When using the Cut & Paste Link method, some client applications may display a dialog box that allows you to specify either a "Hot" or "Cold" link. A "Hot" link means that changes in the data from the server are immediately updated in the client when the change occurs. A "Cold" link means the linked data is updated only at the request of the client program, usually with some sort of "request" command. Cold links are useful when the linked item consists of a huge amount of data like a large bitmap. It would be very inefficient to continually update an entire bitmap graphic from a server to a client each time a single pixel changes in the server.

For small character based data items (as provided by WinWedge), you would normally specify a "Hot" link. In some programs a Hot link may also be referred to as an "Auto Update" link.