How To Paste in Microsoft Word without Formatting on a PC or Mobile Device

Do you experience formatting problems when pasting website content to Microsoft Word? The entire text you paste may get recognized as a header, but you can have other formatting issues too, such as out-of-control content placement, undesired hyperlinks, different fonts, and more. Deleting and reformatting everything by hand can take too much time.

That being said, there are various ways to paste text in Word without formatting. This article will teach you several pasting methods so that your documents look the way you want them to.

Note: The examples in this article were copied directly from this content’s webpage, which allows you to see more differentiation with text formatting options using the exact same content and formatting.

How to Paste without Formatting on Windows

There are many ways to paste without the formatting on Windows, we’ll cover a few of them.

Use Notepad to Copy/Paste without Formatting

Windows Notepad is the most basic text editor you can use. It doesn’t recognize any headers, colors, or other formatting options. Every text you paste into Notepad is a basic format. However, the text you’ve pasted into Notepad will still need some manual formatting in Microsoft Word.

Copy your text and then paste it in Word. Select the headers, colors, and other formatting features you want.

Use Microsoft Office Special Paste

Microsoft Word is a complex, high-quality text-formatting program with paste options as one of its core features.

You can use Word to format pasted text in three different ways.

Main Paste Options in Word

When you right-click on the page, you get three paste choices as follows:

• Keep Source Formatting: This option preserves the original formatting of the text you copied, including colors, the size of the letters, headers, footers, and other features. Right-click and select option 1 or use Ctrl + K when pasting, instead of Ctrl + V. Notice the “(K)” in the option’s description below.
  
• Merge Formatting: This option formats the text you copied based on the rest of the text in your Word file. It’s handy when you want to add a quote or a section of an existing article to your text document. Right-click and select option 2 or use Ctrl + M when pasting. Notice the “(M)” in the option’s description below.
  
• Keep Text Only: Use this option if you only need the text and not the original format. The text you paste will appear as basic text without any headers, color changes, and so on. Right-click and select option 3 or press Ctrl + T to paste your basic text.
  

Use PureText to Get Things Done Faster

Notepad is an easy way to paste text as unformatted before transferring it to Word, but you still have to realign the text to suit your needs. PureText does all the work, so all you do is paste it in Word. No, this isn’t referring to pasting font, size, color, or anything special. It’s about placement when pasted.

If your task or job requires a lot of copying and pasting, you’re better off using a small program that does everything automatically. PureText is one of the best tools for the job. It’s a free Windows program that copies and pastes the text you want automatically into a Notepad file.

PureText doesn’t require installation since it’s a dedicated Windows program. You just download the application from the Microsoft Store and launch it. PureText is ideal for editors and people that do a lot of text formatting.

Use Dedicated Browser Extensions

We all know that Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers have numerous extensions designed to make surfing the net easier and more enjoyable. Copy Plain Text 2 is there for Firefox users. It will allow you to copy any text without formatting. Add it to the browser and set it up to your preferences to cut down on your formatting time.

The Chrome extension is called Copy as plain text, and it works like the FireFox version. However, it doesn’t have any shortcuts, which can be a problem if you copy a lot of pages.

How to Paste without Formatting on Mac and Linux

When stripping the formatting, the copied text is possible on Mac and Linux too, but the process is a little different.

macOS

1. Press Shift + Option+ Command + V together to paste the text without changing the font.
   
2. Use TextEdit (Mac’s version of Notepad) to copy and paste your text in the basic form (default app font). Choose Format > Make Plain Text, or hold Command + Shift + T to paste it directly.
   

Just as shown on Windows, you can use the built-in functionality of Microsoft Word to get rid of the formatting when you paste.

Linux OS

The latest Linux versions allow you to paste text without formatting by pressing Ctrl + Shift + V or Ctrl + V, depending one the application. Paste the text into Linux’s Text Editor (using Ctrl + V) or something like Gedit (using Ctrl + Shift + V), and it will strip the text of all formatting, similar to what Notepad does on Windows.

How to Paste without Formatting on Android

For those of you using a mobile device, let’s cover how to paste without formatting in Word.

1. Open up the document you want to paste into in Word and then open up your email app, etc.
2. Now, paste the copied content into your email, etc., not into Word, and select Paste as plain text.
3. Then, copy it again and paste it into your Word document.

Given that the Microsoft Word app for Android is limited in functionality, you can’t directly paste into without the formatting, so you need to use another app to accomplish it. You can also use the browser extension method mentioned above.

How to Paste without Formatting on an iPhone

Similar to your Mac, you can paste without formatting a few different ways.

• Open your document, copy the text you want, and then type Shift + Option+ Command + V once you’ve clicked where you want to paste.
• You can also use long press where you want to paste and then select Keep Text Only to remove the formatting.
• You can use also use a browser extension to eliminate the formatting.

Formatting

As you can see, there are many ways to paste without formatting. Whether it’s through a basic app like Notepad, a browser extension, or the built-in functionality of Word itself, you can easily paste without worrying about unintended formatting.

Share your thoughts and experiences on pasting in Word without formatting below.