If I Had My Document Way… Paste Unformatted

If I Had My Document Way

…the default paste setting in MS Word would be “Keep Text Only”. I think this is one of the most important issues. Currently, when someone pastes text from one document into another, the default behavior is to copy the text and the formatting, including whatever styles are attaches to that text. This can cause all sorts of trouble, especially if the text has some numbering, or is in another language. You end up with a document containing a mish-mash of text styles, languages, conflicting formatting and all sorts of mess.

If the only thing that was pasted was the raw text, and it took on whatever formatting it was pasted into, then your document remains clean and pure, untainted by whatever monstrosity you’re plagiarizing from.

Luckily this setting can be changed, but it requires digging around in the options and training people (like all of these tips).

Do this is in MS Word 2007: Office Button > Word Options > Advanced > Cut, copy and paste > change 4 pasting drop-downs to “Keep Text Only”

You’ll thank me.