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MS Word: Paste and Match Formatting by default

Duncan Epping · Sep 19, 2018 · 16 Comments

Something that bugged me for a long time on a Mac was the copy/paste behavior. I always wanted it to default to match the formatting of the document I am working in, or even paste in unformatted text. Pasting formatted text just messes up your whole document. I never knew how to do this until I recently saw a tweet about it. As I received a question about it today I figured I would write a short blog as the original post on this topic is difficult to find. I do want to point out that all credits for this trick go to user “BAT”, and of course thanks to Rob Nolen for tweeting this!

So how do you “change” the default “paste” option? Well, you don’t really, but you can configure a shortcut and set it to call a menu item. You do this as follows:

  • Open System Preferences
  • Go to Keyboard
  • Click Shortcuts
  • Add an “App Shortcut”
  • Select “Microsoft Word” as the app
  • Use the following as the “Menu Title”: Paste and Match Formatting
  • And in the keyboard shortcut use the key combination COMMAND-V

Now you have created a shortcut that maps to the “paste and match formatting” menu item. Which is very very handy! Thanks Rob and BAT for sharing this, you saved me from a lot of frustration.

Related

Server copy and paste, default, microsoft, ms word, paste

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Comments

  1. Harri W says

    19 September, 2018 at 11:54

    Nice to know. I did not know about app-specific shortcuts. But there is a keyboard shortcut already, shift-opt-cmd-V which does the trick. I know it is quite complex to perform, I usually do it two handed: left pinky hits shift, thumb holds both opt and cmd and right forefinger hits V. It should be supported on every program.
    My word version is 16.16 and this has been supported in at least several last versions.

    Reply
    • Duncan Epping says

      21 September, 2018 at 14:03

      Yeah, I tried that for a while, but I am so used to pressing command+V that I could not get used to that combo.

      Reply
  2. zod says

    23 September, 2018 at 10:53

    the command+V already maps to default paste
    when I tried command+V, it uses paste instead of paste and match formatting

    Reply
    • zodc says

      23 September, 2018 at 17:53

      cleared it now. perhaps was a typo. when this is done, the command+V is remapped.
      awesome thanks!

      Reply
      • Duncan Epping says

        26 September, 2018 at 10:04

        yes you need to type the menu name “by the letter”, so exactly as is in the menu, other wise it will not work.

        Reply
  3. gopi says

    12 January, 2019 at 10:28

    wow.. this is awesome….thanks much…

    Reply
  4. Monika Sahu says

    15 March, 2019 at 09:41

    Fantastic. Thnakyou so much for sharing this. You are awesome. Credits to also those who helped you know this Similarly, i need a shortcut for maximizing. How do I do that?

    Reply
    • Duncan Epping says

      15 March, 2019 at 14:38

      You can do the same to maximize an app by adding a shortcut with the name “Zoom” for “All Apps” and your shortcut key. I use Shift+Command+Z

      Reply
  5. Kylee says

    19 April, 2019 at 17:55

    THANK YOU! This has been driving me crazy! So glad to be able to simplify the process of pasting and matching the destination formatting.

    Reply
  6. Walter Whitman Moore says

    4 July, 2019 at 18:09

    THANK YOU!!!!
    You have just saved me countless hours of time and made the legal system more efficient! I’m a lawyer who copies and pastes passages from cases into briefs, and now I’ll be much faster at it.
    (Irony: as a person who charges by the hour, the more efficient I am, the less I charge! But that’s okay.)

    Reply
  7. Ankit says

    14 July, 2019 at 17:46

    There is “Customize Keyboard” option in the “Tools” drop-down menu in MS Word. This rewiring of keyboard shortcuts can be done from there as well.

    Reply
    • ada says

      6 November, 2019 at 22:24

      Ankit, you save me nerves!!! Thank you very much! It is the best option that I needed 🙂

      Reply
  8. L C says

    18 July, 2019 at 19:21

    Life changing. Thank you SO much for this, it’s been driving me mad.

    Reply
  9. Thom van Hoek says

    20 August, 2019 at 11:27

    thank you sooo much dear person :”DDD

    Reply
  10. Mohamed Souabi says

    5 January, 2020 at 15:50

    Nicw woek, this was bugging me for ages.

    Reply
    • Mohamed Souabi says

      5 January, 2020 at 15:51

      Oeps: I mean Nice Work!

      Reply

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About the author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist in the Office of CTO of the Cloud Platform BU at VMware. He is a VCDX (# 007), the author of the "vSAN Deep Dive", the “vSphere Clustering Technical Deep Dive” series, and the host of the "Unexplored Territory" podcast.

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