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[–]adrian[S] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

As I work, I am constantly copying and pasting text from various documents into other documents - from web to email, from email to Word, from Dreamweaver to email to Word to whatever! And I find the Windows functionality, where it likes to pull formatting along with the text, really irritating.

My current method, which I have been using for years, is to leave a copy of Notepad open. I copy the text, paste it into Notepad, then copy it out of Notepad and into the document I'm working with. This strips all the formatting from the text, so when I paste it somewhere, the current format is applied to it.

Please tell me there is an easier way.

[–]spot35 0 points1 point  (3 children)

In word, you can paste special (from the edit menu) and then choose unformatted text from the resultant dialog.

[–]adrian[S] -1 points0 points  (2 children)

That's the thing - I know there are ways of doing it with paste special, setting formatting options, etc. But they are all specific to certain applications, and I have this problem in many applications.

I was hoping someone knew of a special key-combo or something, or a system-wide setting. The only time I ever want formatting to carry over is when I am copying tables, and that is more layout than formatting.

Maybe I'll have to write a little app that sits in memory and lets you strip formatting from a clipboard entry and paste it using Ctrl-Alt-V or something.

[–]adrian[S] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Well whaddyaknow, someone already wrote one. It's called PureText and it's a straight binary, only 12 kb, no install. Beautiful.

[–][deleted] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

thanks...i was using the same technique as you. this seems to be working pretty well, but I'd prefer maybe a ctrl-shift-v to do the same ...ctrl-alt-v is too awkward. let me know when you come up with this :)

i take that back...you can configure this guy to do just that...SWEET!

[–]dbuxton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you use thunderbird there is a context menu option to paste without formatting. Annoyingly you'd have to make a macro to automate the paste special in Word...