Control The Formatting When You Paste Text

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Control the formatting when you paste text
When you cut or copy text and then paste it into your document, do you want the text to look the way it did in its original location, or do you want it to adopt the look of the surrounding text where it is pasted? Sometimes you may want one option, but in another situation you may want the other.

For example, if you insert a quotation from a Web page into your document, you may want the quotation to appear in the same font as it is on the Web page. On the other hand, if you copy text from one of your own documents to another, you may prefer that the copied text look like the rest of the text in the document where you paste it.

In Word, you can choose either of these options each time that you paste text. If you commonly want one of the options, you can set it as the default for pasted text.

What do you want to do?

Preserve the look of the original text

Change formatting to match the look of the surrounding text

Paste items from a bulleted or numbered list

Set Word defaults for pasting text

Preserve the look of the original text

The text that you move or copy can have a font or other kind of formatting applied to it, such as bold or italic, that differs from the document where you are pasting the text. For example, you can move or copy text that is bold, 10-point Times New Roman, and paste it next to text that is regular, 11-point Calibri. If you want the pasted text to be in Times New Roman instead of Calibri, you can preserve its look.

Select the text that you want to move or copy, and then press CTRL+X to move the text, or press CTRL+C to copy the text.

Click where you want to paste the text, and then press CTRL+V.

Click Paste Options Button image, which appears after you paste the text.

I don't see a Paste Options button when I paste text.

If you don't see a Paste Options button when you paste text, turn on the option for displaying it.

Press CTRL+Z to undo the paste.

Click the Microsoft Office Button Office button image, and then click Word Options.

Click Advanced, and then scroll down to the Cut, copy, and paste section.

Select the Show Paste Options buttons check box.

Click OK.

Press CTRL+V to paste the text.

Click Keep Source Formatting.

NOTE If you paste items from a bulleted or numbered list into a document that contains a bulleted or numbered list, you might not see Keep Source Formatting when you click the Paste Options button. For more information on pasting lists, see Paste items from a bulleted or numbered list in this article.

I followed these steps, but the formatting does not match the original.

If you paste a portion of a paragraph from another Word document and styles such as Normal, Heading 1, and so on are defined differently in both documents, the Paste Options button can display Keep Source Formatting as selected, yet the pasted text does not look like the text in the original document. This is because the format of the text in the original document is governed by its paragraph style. If you want to preserve its original formatting, do the following:

When you cut or copy the original text, be sure to include the paragraph mark (¶).

NOTE To display the paragraph mark, click Show/Hide ¶ in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

Word Ribbon image

Paste the text.

Click Paste Options Button image, and then click Keep Source Formatting.

Delete any unwanted text that precedes the end of the paragraph.

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Change formatting to match the look of the surrounding text

The text that you move or copy can have a font or other kind of formatting applied to it (such as bold or italic) that differs from the document where you are pasting the text. For example, you can move or copy text that is bold, 10-point Times New Roman, and paste it next to text that is regular, 11-point Calibri. If you want the pasted text to be in Calibri to match the surrounding text, you can do