Sometimes we just want to remove formatting or a style already applied to some text. In addition to a few standard features, Word includes several related shortcuts and commands to remove text formatting faster.
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Remove text formatting in Word
Sometimes the text formatting gets messed up, and we just want to get rid of it. Start over. Doesn’t sound like much to ask, right?
Fortunately, we can accomplish this task through the application interface, but we also cover some convenient shortcuts or commands. These options should get 99.9271% of what we need done without any issues.
A previous article covered shortcuts to copy and past text formatting, but they will not technically paste “no formatting.” That is, they will not remove any formatting other than replacing the formatting they paste over. We could insert a normal paragraph and copy and paste the normal formatting somewhere else, but that's extra work. What if we just want to remove existing formatting from some selected text?
Clear All Formatting button (Ribbon)
The Home tab in the Word ribbon includes a Clear All Formatting button (icon is an A beside a little eraser). It works as follows depending on the initial selection.
- No initial selection → Remove character formatting or a character style from the current word and removes the paragraph style reverting to the default style
- Selection includes only part of a paragraph → Remove character formatting or a character style from the selected text reverting all formatting to the underlying paragraph style
- Selection includes a full paragraph or spans multiple paragraphs → Remove all formatting reverting all formatting, including the paragraph style, usually to the Normal style
I wish the behavior were a tab more consistent between no initial selection or a partial paragraph selection, but it's one of those handy features where most of us (yeah, me too) probably weren't aware of it.
Shortcuts to remove formatting (Windows)
The standard Word shortcuts for remove formatting include (Windows):
- Control+Q in Windows removes paragraph formatting
- Control+Spacebar in Windows removes manual character formatting from selected text
Mac does not seem to include equivalent standard shortcuts, but we can assign our own (see below). Even in Windows, I tend to remap these shortcuts to others since I use my own macro shortcuts more, and they take priority.
Some other standard shortcuts exist to modify or remove specific formatting, but these are more of a legacy feature. For consistent content formatting, styles are faster to use and easier to modify (mostly).
Standard format removal commands
Word includes several standard commands which we can assign to custom shortcuts (see below) as needed. Brief summaries of the relevant commands are:
- ClearAllFormatting → Removes all manual character or paragraph formatting from the selected text with a few picky details (works as if the Clear All Formatting button mentioned above was clicked)
- CharacterRemoveStyle → Removes any character styles but does not affect manual character formatting, nor does it change any paragraph formatting or style
- CharacterClearFormatting → Removes any character formatting or a character style from the selected text
- ParagraphRemoveStyle → Removes any paragraph styles (usually defaults to Normal style) but does not affect manual character or paragraph formatting
- RemoveSimilarFormatting → Removes formatting that is the same within the selected text reverting to the default formatting of the underlying paragraph style. It does not modify distinct character formatting in the selected text even if that text contains the same "similar" format attribute. It seems to automatically act on the full paragraph even if only part of the paragraph is initially selected.
These are available for both Word for Windows or Mac. Several other more specific formatting removal commands exist, but the above are more likely to be useful in typical editing.
Assign custom shortcuts to a Word command
A previous article for Mac or this video for Windows explains how to assign shortcuts to the above commands in more detail. Another article covers automatically assigning shortcuts to macros or commands, and a separate member article series makes the assignments even easier. Shortcut organization or reassignments are much easier with the latter approach, but it is more complicated.
Manual custom shortcut assignments
For completeness, 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.
In the context of formatting removal shortcuts, see the above commands for some good candidates.
Paste text without formatting
What if we instead want the text not the formatting?
Sometimes we want to remove formatting from some text already copied to the clipboard. Word includes some relevant standard commands:
- PasteTextOnly → Pastes text without any formatting information meaning the text always takes on the default target style and formatting
- PasteDestinationStyle → Pastes text using the style of the target location (kind of what also happens when no formatting is included, but it may retain some other source style information)
These can be assigned to a custom shortcut using the above steps, but the best solution in Windows is to use the PowerToys app (see below) since it works system wide.
Paste unformatted text (Mac)
Macs already have a standard, system-wide shortcut to paste unformatted text is Command+Option+Shift+V, but in Word we can instead use the standard shortcut Command+Shift+V. However, I remapped it system-wide to Command+Control+V which I my fingers find more convenient. I use it regularly on my MacBook.
Paste unformatted text (Windows)
In Windows, some apps use Control+Shift+V to paste unformatted text, but it’s not standardized. I remapped it to Control+Win+V since I use the former to copy the current paragraph to the clipboard.
With PowerToys (Windows)
For a Windows-wide solution, an easy alternative is to install Windows PowerToys. It adds a whole stack of cool and useful tools to Windows most of which are outside the scope this article. One applet called Advanced Paste allows us to add a new paste text only shortcut. I assigned it to Control+Win+V (yeah, we can even use the Win key).
Menu-based approaches (Word)
For completeness, the menu-based approaches to paste unformatted text in either Word for Mac or Windows are:
- Edit → Paste Special … and select the Unformatted Text option.
- Alternatively, right click (also Control+Click on a Mac) anywhere in a document to bring up the context menu. Then use the Paste Special … option.
Should we macro it?
I love Word macros, but … okay fine, I'll just say it.
No Bake Jello Cheesecake is just as good as the homemade stuff. There, the truth's out. And I like the Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup more than real maple syrup too! (Neither are affiliates) Hopefully, my progeny aren't ashamed of me, but not every mass produced thingy is bad.
I've created some macros to carry out trivial editing tasks (and have been pleasantly surprised several times!). We could implement the above commands in a macro, but without any additional features to include (great if so), it would be a one-line macro that just emulates one of the standard Word commands (a.k.a., we reinvent the wheel).
A custom macro is unnecessary for now and outside the scope of this article, but if you're chomping at the bit for a DIY approach, another article covers a custom macro.
