Sometimes we just want to duplicate existing formatting for some other text. Beyond simple formatting, it can become cumbersome, but Word includes several related shortcuts and commands that copy and paste text formatting. We further mention a few special case formatting commands in Word.
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Copy and paste formatting in Word
Sometimes we just want to copy the same formatting from one block of text to another. It doesn’t sound like too much to ask, but what if it includes several changes or we need to duplicate it across multiple paragraphs?
We can accomplish the task (more slowly) through the application interface (see below) or via two standard Word shortcuts.
Standard copy and paste shortcuts (all applications)
For completeness, the standard copy shortcuts are Command+C on a Mac or Control+C in Windows which copy content to the system (or Office) clipboard. Pasting the clipboard content into a document uses Command+V on a Mac or Control+V in Windows. These shortcuts have been around a long time in computer-years (since approximately 1983 with the Apple Lisa computer), and they work across essentially all operating systems and applications.
The latter shortcut pastes whatever content is present on the clipboard, but the application decides what to do with it. Often this is something typical like plain text or rich text (with basic formatting), but of course, it could include other content or features depending on the target application.
Copy and paste formatting shortcuts (Word)
In Word for Mac, Command+Option+C will copy the text formatting including any styles. Then Command+Option+V pastes that formatting over other text. In Windows, the respective standard shortcuts are Control+Alt+C and Control+Alt+V. We can customize these shortcuts to other key combinations (see below), if desired.
Copy and paste formatting steps
The steps to copy and paste formatting between content work the same as regular copy and paste operations.
How copy and paste formatting works
The shortcuts work for both character and paragraph formatting with reasonably intuitive conditions. We'll call the "source" the copied format location and the "target" where the formatting is pasted. A summary of the basic functionality follows, but also read the note below.
- No source text was selected or selected source text included a full paragraph
- Selected target text does not span a full paragraph → Paste character formatting or style
- Selected target text contains a full paragraph (or multiple) → Paste paragraph formatting including the paragraph style
- No target text is selected → Paste paragraph formatting including the paragraph style
- Selected source text did not include a full paragraph
- Selected target text does not span a full paragraph → Paste character formatting or style
- Selected target text contains a full paragraph or more → Paste character formatting or style
- No target text is selected → Paste character formatting or style to the current word
Pasting character formatting also includes any relevant character formatting from the copied paragraph style. In this case, no paragraph-specific formatting such as line spacing is copied over, nor will the target paragraph style change.
Use styles for common custom formatting
If you have consistent blocks of text with the same custom formatting, consider using styles instead. Any changes only need to be made in one place, and they propagate across the document immediately.
Assign custom shortcuts to a Word command
We can assign a custom shortcuts to any macros or Word commands. A previous article explains making the assignments in Word for Mac, or this video does the same for Windows. For a more comprehensive solution, see another article covering how to automatically assign shortcuts. Shortcut organization (or reassignment if a problem occurs) is easier with the latter approach, but it's more complicated.
Manual custom shortcut assignments
A quick summary of the manual, menu-based shortcut assignment approach is:
- On a Mac, select the Tools → Customize Keyboard … menu option to bring up a dialog to make the changes.
- In Windows, it's buried a little deeper in the interface, but select File → Options → Customize Ribbon. Then click the Customize Keyboard shortcuts … button to access the equivalent dialog.
Special text formatting paste commands
In the context of text formatting changes, what Word commands are good candidates for custom shortcuts?
Word includes multiple specialized paste commands. For anyone wanting to tinker around with filling out their shortcuts toolbox, a few interesting and relevant for this article ones include:
- PasteTextOnly → Paste the text without any formatting
- PasteSourceFormatting → Paste the text using the formatting of the source text (basically the normal formatted paste, but it ensures the source formatting is maintained even when the target formatting is different)
- PasteContinueList → Paste the text while continuing a previous list (which is an annoying little problem sometimes)
- PasteCopilotRewrite or PasteCopilotDraftWithSelection → Opens a corresponding Copilot dialog (probably only available with paid Copilot plans)
- PasteDestinationFormatting or PasteDestinationStyle → Paste the text using the formatting or style of the target location (similar to a pasting text only, but they may preserve certain source formatting)
Other specialized commands exist. We could also create our own macro versions which we could customize to work exactly how we prefer, but that implementation is beyond the scope of this article.
Remove text formatting?
What if you no longer want the current text formatting?
The shortcuts above won’t paste “no formatting,” meaning they will not remove any formatting, but another brief article covers those related standard shortcuts and commands. If you want to dig even deeper, another macro article implements both in a macro.
