One of the most common things computer users do is cut, copy and paste files. When you cut or copy from one place in a document to another, the story is nothing special; on the other hand, when you cut or copy text from a website into a Word document, things get a little more complicated because sometimes you want the copied text to look the same as on the website, and sometimes you just want it harmoniously combined with what you already write.
Microsoft did not turn a blind eye to this and gave us several options for cut, copy and paste in Word 2007 using the “Paste” button on the main ribbon. Realizing that what they’ve done so far wasn’t enough, Microsoft went even further with new versions of Word, giving users a much better preview of what they’d get when they chose one option or another.
You can access Word’s Insert feature in two different ways; the first is to right-click where you want to paste something.
Note. You will see all the paste options only if you have previously selected and copied text from another source that contains custom text.
Another way is to click on the “Insert” icon on the main ribbon:
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Note. For all icons to appear in the dropdown menu, you must first copy the custom text from another source.
Customize word paste options
Notice the “Set as default for paste” option that has been added to the bottom of the dropdown menu:
Clicking on it opens a window to set defaults for many Word options: we only need to look at the default values ??for cut, copy and paste:
Setting default values ??when you insert something is actually more important than it might seem. Let’s say, for example, you are used to using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V to copy and paste content from websites into Word documents; usually by default what is copied is pasted in its natural state, that is, with all the Internet formatting.
If you change the default for pasting between documents and pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only, you can save yourself the extra step of manually disabling formatting by first copying everything into Notepad and then copying from there.
In any case, once you have set the defaults you want, the “Insert” function will work the same no matter which way you access it. To use it, first copy the formatted text and / or graphics from the website:
Then open or resume working on the document in Word, then select a place in the document to paste the copied material by clicking the document; then click the Insert icon. You should immediately notice that everything looks different; there are now icons instead of word variants.
To see how these icons work, slowly move your mouse over the various options. Moving from left to right, the icons represent: Keep Source Formatting, Combine Formatting, and Keep Text Only. You can see how the pasted material will look in your document when you hover over the three icons.
Keep original formatting:
Keep the source format:
Combine Format:
Keep text only:
Keep text only :
To paste the copied material, click on the one you want and the copied material will be pasted into your document in the format of your choice (in this case, keep the original formatting).
The new icon-based paste tool with preview should make cutting, copying and pasting a lot easier for anyone moving around a lot of text from different applications in Word. Enjoy!
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