In addition to editing materials and maps with Material Editor, 3ds Max provides a variety of ways to copy or move materials, maps, and colors about the scene.
A set of right-click pop-up menus in the Material Editor (and elsewhere in the 3ds Max interface) lets you copy and paste, and otherwise manage materials, maps, bitmaps, and colors.
You can move materials from the Material Editor to objects using a drag-and-drop operation. You can also drag to and from map and material buttons.
You can apply a material to a selection of renderable sub-objects, such as faces in a mesh. In the Material Editor, you can use Assign Material to Selection. You can also drag the material from the Material Editor or the Material/Map Browser to the selected faces. This can create a new Multi/Sub-Object material on the fly.