You can copy and paste annotation features into the same or a different annotation feature class. The way the annotation symbology is stored can impact the display of the pasted annotation.
- If the annotation feature references a symbol in the symbol collection, the annotation feature is copied and pasted so that it maintains the reference to that text symbol and also any overrides that exist.
- When you are editing within the same feature class, the reference points to the original text symbol for that annotation feature, and the draw properties of the text do not change.
- If you are copying and pasting to a different annotation feature class, the annotation may be displayed differently if the symbol collection for the new annotation feature class is different.
- To ensure the same display of the annotation, create a new symbol in the symbol collection and calculate the SymbolID of the pasted features to that new text symbol number.
- If the SymbolID of the feature does not exist in the new symbol collection, the annotation is not displayed, and its bounding box appears as a red box. To display the annotation, either calculate the SymbolID to an existing symbol in the symbol collection or create a new symbol and calculate the SymbolID to that value.
- If the annotation feature stores all of its properties inline (in other words, the SymbolID value is -1, and the feature does not reference a text symbol in the symbol collection), the feature is pasted as it appears in the original annotation feature class.
- Click the Edit tool
or the Edit Annotation tool 
on the Editor toolbar and select the annotation.
- Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking features to select additional features.
- Click the Copy button
on the Standard toolbar.
- Click the Paste button
on the Standard toolbar.
- Click the layer in which to store the pasted feature. When copying and pasting features, you choose the layer in which to store the new feature. This allows you to retain the attribute values from the copied feature, rather than having them be overwritten with values from a feature template.
- Click OK. The feature is pasted on top of the original feature.