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New Paste Options in Word 2007

February 17th, 2008 | by Loren |

If you do much copying and pasting into Word from email or web pages, this is an option you’ll appreciate.

In all Word versions, the default action was to paste text in the format it was originally in, in the case of web pages and email that would be HTML. If you are working in a Word document, not a web page, you don’t need HTML. So to change the paste format, you always had to open the Paste Special box and choose how to paste, say as unformatted text.

New in Word 2007 is the ability to specify a default for pasted text, so when you copy from an external program, it will always paste as plain text (or match the existing formatting in the Word document).

To make the change, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Office button; choose Word Options (bottom right of the menu).
  2. In the Word Options box, click Advanced in the left-hand column.
  3. Scroll down to the Cut, copy and paste section. There you’ll see a Pasting from other programs option. The drop-down list for it will give you choices of Keep Source Formatting (Default), Keep Text Only, and Match Destination Formatting.
  4. After making your choice, click OK to save your changes.

One main difference Keep Text Only and Match Destination Formatting is that Keep Text Only won’t include any links that were copied.

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  1. 5 Responses to “New Paste Options in Word 2007”

  2. By Rob on Mar 11, 2009 | Reply

    I just solved it with some help from other sites. But for Word 2004 on a Mac (is there Word 2008?)

    - record a macro
    - record the action of “paste as”
    - edit the macro in the visual basic editor so that it shows:
    Selection.PasteAndFormat (wdFormatPlainText)
    - assign a shortcut key to the macro

    Rob

  3. By Loren on Feb 5, 2009 | Reply

    Hello Bill – Great question. Alt + Shift + F10 will open the Paste Options (the notepad icon) from the keyboard, then use up and down arrows to highlight, Enter to choose. Esc will cancel.
    Also, you can open the context menu (right click) with the Windows dialog box key (by the right-hand Windows flag key), or F10.
    Hope that helps!

  4. By Bill Bennett on Feb 4, 2009 | Reply

    I do a lot of copying and pasting between my browser (Firefox actually but who’s counting?) and Word 2007.

    The setting you mention have been really helpful, but I could speed up my work considerably if I could use keyboard short cuts.

    Control-C and Control-V are simple. But once I’ve controlled-V, there’s a small icon of a notepad. At the moment I have to reach to my mouse to click this. Once opened there are options which have keyboard short cuts. Is there a shortcut to avoid the mouse action?

  5. By Loren on Dec 8, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Ray – that’s a good question. I don’t work on a Mac, but I checked Microsoft’s Mactopia site for an answer for you. Do you have a Word menu in Word? If so, open it, and choose Preferences. I would guess that paste options would then be in Edit preferences.
    Hope that helps! If you would, post another comment about where you found the answer.

  6. By Ray on Dec 8, 2008 | Reply

    Sorry if I am being stupid here … my first ever question on an IT site!

    I use a Mac and am working in Word 2008 for Mac. I really need to change the default option to “keep text only” but cannot see how to do it. I do not seem to have an Office button and therefore cannot follow the above path.

    Thanks

    Ray

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