Microsoft Word users are going to get a new, and much needed, shortcut that should make text formatting a lot easier. As announced on the Microsoft 365 Insider blog, Microsoft Word for both Windows and Mac will be getting a Paste Text Only keyboard shortcut.
As the blog post itself says:
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just copy and paste text from a website into your document and have it look good? Imagine not having to manually remove the source formatting like font size, type, or background color.
You might be familiar with this shortcut Ctrl + Shift + V (Cmd + Shift + V on Mac)—it’s also called “keep text only” or “paste plain text”—because of its popularity in other applications like Microsoft Teams, Word for the web, Google, and Gmail. No matter what you call it, the Paste Text Only shortcut is now available in Word for Windows and Word Mac.
Actually, it"s not quite ready yet for general availability. The blog post says the feature is currently available for Microsoft 365 Home and Business Standard Beta Channel users for the following Windows and Mac versions:
- Windows: Version 16.0.15831.20174 or later
- Mac: Version 16.67.1113.0 or later
The blog post also points out that users can go into settings to get rid of any numbers and bullet icons that might get copied into the Paste Text Only shortcut.
With the new shortcut, some other Word keyboard shortcuts will get changed. Here"s the skinny on those new setups:
| Feature | New Shortcut (Windows) | New Shortcut (Mac) |
| Paste Text Only | Ctrl + Shift + V | Cmd + Shift + V |
| Copy Format Painter | Ctrl + Alt + C | Cmd + Option + C |
| Paste Format Painter | Ctrl + Alt + V | Cmd + Option + V |
| Paste Special | Alt + H + V + S | None |
| Copyright Symbol | ( + C + ) or Insert > Ω Symbol > © | ( + C + ) or Insert > Ω Symbol > © |