Otherwise, if Word crashes before you properly close it, you’ll lose the changes to the settings you just made. Then, click the “OK” button at the bottom to close the Word Options window and save the changes you made.Īfter doing that, close Word completely (closing any documents you have open) and then re-open it. When you’re done, the series of dropdown menus should look like this: For each of the pasting options, change the dropdown menu to “Keep Text Only”. Scroll down to the “Cut, copy, and paste” section. In the “Word Options” window that comes up, click on “Advanced” in the sidebar on the left.

In Microsoft Word, click “File”, then “Options”. Let’s start with Microsoft Word, which is slightly simpler than Outlook. Macs are great.) Changing the default paste options in Microsoft Word You can even make this the default at the operating system level. I’ve probably pasted text with formatting twice since getting a Mac Command-Option-Shift-V is my perpetual go-to keyboard shortcut. Not exactly ergonomic, but it works beautifully. (If you’re using a Mac, you can just use the “Paste and Match Style” keyboard shortcut: Command-Option-Shift-V, to just paste plain text. Guilty as charged! Fortunately, there’s an easy way to prevent this from happening, by changing the application settings in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word. Hello (in navy blue, Times New Roman text) Éloïse, Outlook is more than happy to bring along the formatting, leading to situations like this: In my case, I’m a little bit paranoid about misspelling people’s names when I reply to emails, so I practically always copy and paste people’s names into the introduction of my email. The struggle is real:ĭoes anyone ever want to paste the formatting? why is this a default? #crankypants- Cyd Harrell August 30, 2017 You hit “Paste”, and your Microsoft Word freezes up for a painful few seconds, then proceeds to turn the formatting of the entire remainder of your Word document into a strange and bewildering hybrid of the fonts and colours of the website you just pasted. You’re copying and pasting something from some obligatory government website into some obligatory government Word document. We’ve all been there, fellow public servants.

Public service tech tip: Paste without fonts and formatting

How to keep source formatting in word