Kill paste-with-formatting to death

Being a Security Consultant (not a fan of the word consultant, but alas) is pretty much synonym to being a technical writer, which means I spend a lot of my time in a word processor. One of my (many) annoyances is that on any platform in any word processor someone decided to make paste with formatting the default behaviour. It must be me, but I never, ever want to paste formatting.

On Mac OS X you have a system wide shortcut key to paste without formatting. In Open Office you have a shortcut key as well. In Microsoft Office you will have to write a Macro.

• OS X system wide paste without formating: command (Apple) + option (alt) + v
• For making it the default behavior look here: www.tuaw.com/…
• In Open Office you do: ctrl + shift + v

• For Microsoft Office look here: office.microsoft.com/…

• For Microsoft Office 2007 specifically you can pretty much follow the steps above, but the menus differ slightly. So do this:

1. Select View Tab > Macros > View Macros
2. Type a new name for a Macro: PasteUnformattedText
3. Select Create
4. Now make the marco:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Sub PasteUnformattedText() ' ' PasteUnformattedText Macro ' ' Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText End Sub

5. Select File > Close and return to Microsoft Word
6. Select the Microsoft Office button thingy top left > Word Options > Customize
7. Select Macros in the Categories section
8. Select PasteUnformattedText and enter a new shotcut key ctrl + v for it
9. Select Assign > Close

Unfortunatly I haven’t found a Windows system-wide solution.

Update:Kirk Woll (see comment below) had a good tip: , I’ve just tested it and it seems to be a great solution for Windows.