You copy a sentence from a web page, paste it into an email, and suddenly it is grey, in a different font, and twice the size of everything around it. That is rich text doing exactly what it was built to do. When you copy, most apps grab the words and their styling: font, size, color, bold, italics, links, the lot. Paste without stripping that styling and it all comes along for the ride. Pasting without formatting drops the styling and keeps only the raw characters, so the text matches wherever you put it.
The good news is that nearly every app has a way to do this. The annoying news is that the shortcut is not the same everywhere. The sections below cover the plain-text paste for each platform and the most common apps, plus what to do when none of the shortcuts behave.
How do you paste without formatting?
Press the plain-text paste shortcut for your platform instead of the normal paste. It drops the fonts, colors and links and keeps only the characters.
- Windows and ChromeOS: Ctrl+Shift+V.
- Mac: Cmd+Shift+V in browsers and Slack, Cmd+Option+Shift+V in Apple’s apps and Word.
- Anywhere else: paste into a plain-text box, copy it back out, then paste it where you want it.
The clipboard only holds your last copy, so the text is gone once you copy something else. A clipboard manager like Relic keeps everything you copy, so you can search for it and paste it again later on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android or iPhone.
What is the paste without formatting shortcut?
Start with the keyboard. These cover the large majority of cases, and they are worth committing to muscle memory if you paste a lot.
- Windows: Ctrl+Shift+V. This works in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Google Docs, Slack, Discord and many more. It is the single most useful one to remember.
- Mac: Cmd+Shift+Vin browsers like Chrome and apps like Slack. Apple’s own apps (Notes, Mail, Pages, Keynote) and Microsoft Word use Cmd+Option+Shift+V instead.
- Chromebook: Ctrl+Shift+V, the same as Windows. It works across Chrome and most web apps on ChromeOS.
If you are still getting comfortable with the basics, the main copy and paste guide covers every device from scratch and lists the full set of shortcuts for both Windows and Mac.
How do you paste plain text in Google Docs, Word and Excel?
Some apps have their own wording for this, hidden in a menu rather than behind a shortcut. These are the ones people ask about most.
Google Docs
Use Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows or a Chromebook, and Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac. You can also go to Edit, then Paste without formatting in the menu. This is one of the most common reasons people search for this trick, because pasting from the web into Docs drags in fonts and link styling that ruin a clean document. We go deeper on this in how to copy and paste in Google Docs.
Microsoft Word
Word calls it Paste Special. The cleanest route is the small clipboard icon that appears right after you paste: click it and choose Keep Text Only. You can also go to the Home tab, click the arrow under Paste, choose Paste Special, and select Unformatted Text. If you want this to be the default behavior, Word lets you set it under File, Options, Advanced, Cut, copy and paste.
Excel and Google Sheets
Spreadsheets are a special case, because formatting often means cell styling and formulas, not just fonts. In Excel, use Paste Special (Ctrl+Alt+V on Windows) and pick Values to paste numbers and text without formulas or formatting. In Google Sheets, use Edit, Paste special, Values only, or Ctrl+Shift+V. This is the fix for the classic problem of a pasted number turning into a date or carrying a color you did not want.
Browsers, chat and email
In Chrome, Edge and Firefox, Ctrl+Shift+V (or Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac) pastes plain text into most text fields. Slack and Discord use the same shortcut. Gmail and Outlook on the web both respect it too, which is handy when you are quoting something into a reply and do not want the original styling.
How do you strip formatting when no shortcut works?
When no shortcut works, or you cannot remember the right one, there is a method that works absolutely everywhere. Paste your copied text into a plain-text field first, then copy it back out. A plain-text field cannot store styling, so the round trip strips it for you.
- The address bar of your browser.
- A basic notes app, or any plain text editor like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit in plain-text mode on Mac.
- The search box in almost any app.
Paste in, select all, copy again, and paste the clean version where you actually want it. It is two extra steps, but it never fails, and it is the only reliable way to do this on a phone, which has no plain-text paste shortcut at all.
Why does pasted text keep its formatting?
It helps to know what is actually moving when you copy. Your clipboard can hold the same content in several formats at once. When you copy from a styled source, it usually stores a rich version (with all the formatting) and a plain version (just the characters) side by side. A normal paste asks for the richest format the destination understands. A plain-text paste asks for the stripped version instead. Nothing is being deleted from your copy; you are simply choosing which version to drop in.
This is also why the same copied text can look different depending on where you paste it. Drop it into a styled document and it keeps its look. Drop it into a code editor or a terminal, which only accept plain text, and the formatting vanishes on its own. Understanding the difference is half the battle, and it is the same idea behind what a clipboard manager does when it stores and reuses what you copy.
Make it a habit
If you write or edit anything, plain-text paste is one of the highest-value shortcuts you can learn. It saves the cleanup work of fixing fonts, removing highlights and stripping stray links after the fact. Learn the one shortcut for your main apps, keep the round-trip trick in your back pocket for everything else, and pasted text will stop fighting you.
Sources
- Keyboard shortcuts in Windows, Microsoft Support
- Mac keyboard shortcuts, Apple Support
- Keyboard shortcuts for Google Docs, Google Docs Editors Help
- Control the formatting when you paste text, Microsoft Support