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milehighguy · May 3, 2006, 10:24 AM

Hi,
I am wondering if there is any way to change the default way Word 2004 pastes text from the clipboard into a document. Whenever I copy from Firefox and Cmd - V into a document, the text I pasted comes out as Lucida Grande size 13, which is never the font I'm working in. What I end up doing is going to Edit-Paste Special-Paste Unformatted Text every time. Is there any way to set this as the default option, so I can just Cmd - V the text into my document as unformatted text automatically?
Thanks.

Tuoder · May 3, 2006, 01:02 PM

I have the same problem, although I haven't really looked into it. Anyone?

torifile · May 3, 2006, 01:23 PM

Word has a mind of it's own when it comes to formatting. There's nothing else to be said about it.

pendragon · May 3, 2006, 02:13 PM

Sorry I don't know the solution, but when I cut & paste from from FF or Safari in to Word 2004, the font is as it supposed to be.

Perhaps Lucida Grande 13 is the default when one does not have copied font active in Word/Font Book.

tooki · May 3, 2006, 03:06 PM

Um, you don't have to use the Paste Special command. Just paste using Command-V. You should get, at the end of the pasted text, a button-looking menu with a clipboard on it. Press it. It has three options:
1. Keep Source Formatting
2. Match Destination Formatting
3. Keep Text Only

#1 is what happens by default.
#2 changes the font to that of the document, but keeps bold and italic intact (so, for example, if you copy text from a web page that is in Verdana, with some words bold, and your Word doc is in Times, this option will convert the pasted text to Times, but the bold parts will still be bold)
#3 strips all formatting (the text would be pasted, to continue the example, as Times, with the bold lost)

tooki

icruise · May 3, 2006, 03:48 PM

That's a bit easier than selecting "paste special" but it's still not as easy as a straight shortcut, especially if you're pasting a lot of text.

milehighguy · May 3, 2006, 04:51 PM

The clipboard drop-down menu option works for me - it's certainly more convenient than going through Paste Special. Thanks to all for your responses and help.

CharlesS · May 3, 2006, 05:47 PM

1. Save the Word doc

2. Open the Word doc in TextEdit

3. Command-Option-Shift-V

4. Marvel at the fact that TextEdit actually has more useful features than Word

philm · May 3, 2006, 06:27 PM

I think that Word pastes in the format of the 'Normal' style of the document. That is, I suspect that the Normal style of your document is Lucia Grande. If you alter this to whatever you want, it should work fine. Styles are a critical part of working with Word IMHO.

Tuoder · May 3, 2006, 09:29 PM

I don't like word anymore. It is too "smart". I don't like Word "predicting" what I meant to do. I don't like any of the auto* features. I prefer Word 97.

all2ofme · May 10, 2006, 09:19 AM

Word!

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Originally Posted by Tuoder

I don't like word anymore. It is too "smart". I don't like Word "predicting" what I meant to do. I don't like any of the auto* features. I prefer Word 97.

tooki · May 10, 2006, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by Tuoder

I don't like word anymore. It is too "smart". I don't like Word "predicting" what I meant to do. I don't like any of the auto* features. I prefer Word 97.

So turn them off in the Preferences.

I happen to think that once you try and work with Word, rather than against it, it really is an efficient program to work in. It's not perfect, for sure, but I find that a lot of its AI functions really do accurately figure out what I am doing. Then, if you actually learn the basics of styles, you can really work extremely powerfully.

tooki

tooki · May 10, 2006, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by philm

I think that Word pastes in the format of the 'Normal' style of the document. That is, I suspect that the Normal style of your document is Lucia Grande. If you alter this to whatever you want, it should work fine. Styles are a critical part of working with Word IMHO.

Word preserves the formatting of the incoming text, if it's styled text in the clipboard, and if the incoming text is not styled, it matches the formatting of the text immediately before the insertion point.

All the web browsers so far copy styled text (not plain text) into the clipboard, so Word will preserve the formatting.

tooki

JKT · May 10, 2006, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

So turn them off in the Preferences.

I happen to think that once you try and work with Word, rather than against it, it really is an efficient program to work in. It's not perfect, for sure, but I find that a lot of its AI functions really do accurately figure out what I am doing. Then, if you actually learn the basics of styles, you can really work extremely powerfully.

tooki

Unfortunately, Word's UI for Styles is just one of many goddamned appalling things about the programme and does absolutely nothing to help you learn how to use them... 12 versions and MS still can't get basics right.

Personally, if you want to learn the power of styles you are far better off starting with either Apple's Pages or NeoOffice/OpenOffice.org, then when you try to utilise the feature in Word you can marvel at just how cack-handedly absymal Word's implementation is.

Anyway, it's an old joke, but still so true - why is that when you get a new version of Word, the first thing you do is spend half an hour turning off all the "great" new features?

JKT · May 10, 2006, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

I happen to think that once you try and work with Word, rather than against it, it really is an efficient program to work in.

Hey... the same applies to Windows!

Er... maybe NOT.

tooki · May 11, 2006, 03:20 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

Unfortunately, Word's UI for Styles is just one of many goddamned appalling things about the programme and does absolutely nothing to help you learn how to use them... 12 versions and MS still can't get basics right.

:shrug: It doesn't seem hard to me at all.

It uses the same formatting dialog boxes as the rest of the program. And above all, there's the "update style to match selection" function, if you don't want to make the changes "blind".

tooki

P · May 11, 2006, 04:36 AM

Originally Posted by Tuoder

I don't like word anymore. It is too "smart". I don't like Word "predicting" what I meant to do. I don't like any of the auto* features. I prefer Word 97.

In general I agree with you (and double that for Excel - no, I'm not writing a date, thank you but this particular behavious was there in Word 1.0. The OS sends along all the formatting and lets the program decide what to do with it. Default is to paste everything. You could presumably write a little program to strip the formatting from the clipboard (or pasteboard, I guess I should say under OS X) but I'm not aware of one.

You can link a keyboard command to Paste Special, though, can't you?

tooki · May 11, 2006, 03:13 PM

Deep in the OS, it's called the pasteboard, but the user-exposed name for the clipboard in Mac OS X is "clipboard." (Cf. Finder: Edit->Show Clipboard.)

tooki