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June 9, 2007 by Steve.
The ability to copy and paste information between programs is a great Windows feature. That said, the feature doesn’t always work as one would like. Suppose you’re trying to copy and paste text from a Web page into a Word document. Using the regular copy and paste method (Control-C, Control-V), the result is a formatting mess.
The reason? When you highlight a block of text, the copy command copies the visible text as well as all of the HTML code that is part of the Web page. Using the regular paste function, all formatting code is included with the text you are pasting. This also happens if you want to copy and paste from one document to another.
Word, however, provides an option to only paste the actual unformatted words and not the extra code. The option is called Paste Special, which is found on the Edit menu. When you choose the Paste Special option, you’ll be given several choices. Choose the Unformatted Text option to strip out all formatting. There are several other options that you can experiment with to see the results.
This works in other office applications as well. In Excel for example, Special Paste allows you to copy and paste values from cells without bringing over the cell formulas. From the options screen for Paste Special, select only the Values option.
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