Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Plain Text Pasting as the Default.

Plain Text Pasting as the Default

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 11, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

When you paste information in a document from the Clipboard, there are generally several different ways that Word can paste it. If you do a Ctrl+C or a Ctrl+X to place information on the Clipboard, you can see the different ways that Word could paste the data by displaying the Paste Special dialog box. (Click the down-arrow under the Paste tool in the Clipboard group of the ribbon, then choose Paste Special.) (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Paste Special dialog box.

Of course, when you press Ctrl+V to paste, Word must choose one of the available pasting methods to use in the actual paste operation. The method chosen by Word depends on the type of data you are pasting.

If you do a lot of pasting of text from other programs, you may want to make the default pasting method Unformatted Text, which means that the text is placed in the document with no formatting whatsoever. (The same as choosing Unformatted Text from the Paste Special dialog box.) There is no way to configure this in Word, but you can use a very, very simple macro to do the pasting for you:

Sub InsertAsPlainText()
    On Error GoTo F
    Selection.PasteSpecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText, _
      Placement:=wdInLine, DisplayAsIcon:=False
    Exit Sub
F: Beep
End Sub

You can assign this macro to a tool on the Quick Access Toolbar or you can assign it to a keyboard shortcut. In fact, you can assign it to the Ctrl+V shortcut, which means that it replaces the normal pasting behavior of Ctrl+V.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13144) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Plain Text Pasting as the Default.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is two more than 9?

2020-09-02 07:08:55

Richard Curtis

Why can't you use the Keep Text Only option from Word > Options > Advanced > Cut, copy & paste?

2020-07-14 21:22:59

Caran

Seems like it would have been simpler to add the button Paste and Keep Text Only to the QAT.

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