Once you’ve installed it and familiarized yourself with the application, you can use this script to modify your paste shortcut to automatically strip the formatting using this handy bit of AHK code, called Better Paste, courtesy of Dustin Luck/Lifehacker: We’d recommend checking out our beginner’s guide to get a feel for what AHK is. It’s the handiest little application we keep in our arsenal of daily use tools and there’s hardly a week that goes by where we don’t find a new use for it. If you’re not already using AutoHotkey, well, there’s no time like the present to start. The first workaround relies on AutoHotkey. Although it’s always nice to be able to use a keyboard shortcut natively with no extra work, we have two simple workarounds you can use to strip the formatting while keeping the simplicity of a single keyboard shortcut.
![keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting](https://www.excelcampus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Paste-Special-Button-Opens-Paste-Special-Menu-in-Excel.png)
If the CTRL+SHIFT+V combo doesn’t work for the application you’re preparing your document in, don’t worry. RELATED: The Beginner's Guide to Using an AutoHotkey Script but the shortcut isn’t support in, of all places, Microsoft Word (You can, however, use ALT+E+S in Microsoft Office apps to enable Paste Special which will allow you to select what formatting, if any, you want to preserve).
#KEYBOARD SHORTCUT FOR PASTE WITHOUT FORMATTING WINDOWS#
For example, in Windows you can use CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste unformatted text into tons of programs like Google Chrome, Evernote, etc. While this shortcut is fairly universal, in that it works in hundreds of applications and across operating systems, it isn’t actually a hardcoded system function and not all applications have to respond to it. The first thing you can do, and the simplest to implement, is to switch from using CTRL+V (Paste) to CTRL+SHIFT+V (Paste Plain Text).
![keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting](https://www.shorttutorials.com/libre-office-keyboard-shortcuts/images/paste-unformatted-text-1.jpg)
Problem solving is what we do best we’re not going to let you leave this column still using Notepad as a middle man! There are several tricks you can use, depending on the operating system/application you’re working in. Surely there is some way for me to copy and paste without the formatting that doesn’t involve copy/pasting every section of text twice? What should I do?
![keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting](https://cdn.wallstreetmojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Excel-Shortcut-Paste-Values-main-image.png)
My current solution, which I’ll be the first to admit is probably the worse, is to paste all the text into Notepad (because Notepad doesn’t preserve formatting) and then paste it into the final document where (if need be) I apply my own formatting before shipping it off to the boss. The problem is that the source text has all sorts of different formatting (different web sites, different news articles, publications in my industry, etc.) and I need to put it all in a summary digest for my boss. I have to cut and paste a lot of text every day. I have a little problem that I’m super confident you can help me with. I especially love the Ask HTG column and now I’ve got a question of my own to submit for it. I love reading all the articles on your web site about fixing problems and making thing more efficient.
![keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting keyboard shortcut for paste without formatting](https://trumpexcel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Excel-Paste-Special-Shortcuts-Shortcuts.png)
What if you’re frequently pasting text and you want to strip the formatting away in the process? Read on as we help a reader tweak his workflow to be faster and more streamlined. Most of the time we go to great pains to preserve formatting in our text and ensure it looks just the way we want it to.