I get mighty irritated by the fact that when you copy and paste text into an Outlook email, 9 times out of 10 the source is html or some other rich format – so you have to click Paste -> Paste Special -> select “unformatted text” and click OK – a right pain in the arse.
So, I went in search of a short key combination – CTRL V like, but to paste “unformatted”. Well, there isn’t one – the best you can do is to configure the default paste to be “unformatted” – but that’s not very useful when you need to keep the formatting. Here is my top tip: download PureText from here: http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/ it’s a cracker. It allows you to assign any short key combination to “paste unformatted”. I set mine to CRTL B – job done.
PS. While I am at it – if you do paste formatted text into an email and then discover that every subsequent Carriage Return drops you down two lines instead of one, just keep the shift key down when you press return, and you will only drop down one line.
Good tip, thanks. You can also use the (new?) shortcut to bring up the paste special dialog…
Paste special
CTRL+ALT+V
Of course, it would have been too much for MS to have thought of simply using ‘Alt, E, S’ which is what works for Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Sigh.
Nice solution!
I’d also advice watching this video tutorial to complete the task:
http://www.myhowtoos.com/en/excel-howtoos/83-how-to-paste-as-unformatted-text-using-a-shortcut-in-ms-word
Thanks for the V tip! I’ve been an Alt-E-S guy for so long and was despairing of a solution! I’m also not thrilled about the absence of textual documentation. The last thing I want to do is watch a video when I’m looking for a specific command!
Sorry, that should have been Alt-Ctrl-V
Thank you for this tip. It is brilliant and something I will at least 20 times a day. In words of Spock – May you live long and prosper (not really a Trekky fan but it sounds like the appropriate gesture for something you’ve given me that will help me on a daily basis LOL
Or you could just use Ctrl + Alt + V
You could – but then you have an additional step of then having to select the paste format from a drop down list. Either you use PureText and select a simple key combination for pasting text in in the format of the host text – or you use CTRL ALT V and poke about in a drop box selection. Your call
Thanks for the great tip! I’ll be using it often.
Joseph,
Great news! Thanks for taking the time to reply – it is really appreciated.
Woody.
I use copy/paste constantly to put Plain Text into emails, where Outlook is set to use HTML by default. The Paste Special is not even an option, so I was opening Notepad, pasting – selecting – copying, then pasting into Outlook. What a pain. Thanks for this tip, I can’t wait to try out PT!
Steve
i love you
LOL! At least somebody does
Woody.
Top tip, cheers!
Pingback: 2010 in review « Really useful stuff that I bump into…..
Thanks for the tip! Lol this post is 3 years old?
A big thanks for taking the time to comment – it is really appreciated.
Yes, this tip is over 3 years old – and PureText still works fine with XP, Vista and Windows 7. In fact, I use it every day with Windows 7 and wouldn’t be without it!
Best wishes,
Woody.
You solve some time of my live. Thank you!!
Pingback: How to fix irritating double spacing AKA double carriage returns « Really useful stuff that I bump into…..