Apple - Select and drag text on Mac OS X 10.6 doesn't allow me to drag

As far as I know there's no preference to enable this, it's just a built-in feature with no on/off switch.

My best advice is to make sure that you hold down the mouse before starting to drag the text. There's some delay built in such that if you try to drag too quickly, you'll just end up selecting more text.

The process that works for me is:

1. Select the text you want, then release the mouse button.
2. Left-click and hold on the selection for a second.
3. Drag the text to wherever you want it.

The holding before dragging is the key.

I made a quick screencast to demonstrate how this works for me on 10.7.5.