A system and method for creating a new destination data structure in memory populated with data from fields of an existing source data structure. A representation of the source is selected, dragged over, and dropped onto an icon representing a program module. The source and the program module are each associated with a type of data structure. If these types of data structures are different, then the destination is created in memory of the type associated with the program module. Once the destination is created, the data within the source is transformed to populate predetermined fields of the destination. One way of populating the destination is by determining which field in the destination corresponds to a given field in the source. Data from a given field of the source is loaded into the corresponding field of the destination. This is performed for each of the fields in the source, thus transferring the data into the destination from the source without having to manually re-enter or perform successive copy and paste operations on the data in the fields of the destination. Another way of populating the destination is by formatting data from each of the printable fields of the source into a predetermined rich text format to yield a formatted version of the source as if the source were being printed in one of the fields of the destination. The formatted data is then loaded into the field of the destination.