MOS Talk: Paste only what you want, not what you don't
I recently helped a person figure out how to copy text from a web page onto a Microsoft Office document without all of the Internet hitch hikers along for the ride.
Every time the person copied and pasted text from the Web onto a Word document, everything from advertisements to the web page's background design followed.
All she wanted was the text, but she was miffed about how to paste only the elements from the web page she wanted while leaving everything else behind.
The problem is that when you copy from the Web, you are taking data that has been embedded onto the page using hypertext markup language; otherwise known as HTML, the language of the Internet.
Here's how to get around pasting everything that gets copied from a web page or web site:
Use the Paste Special tool.
On the home ribbon of a Microsoft Office document, locate the paste function in the clipboard group at the far left-hand side of the ribbon.
But don't just press the paste button. This is where many people get lost.
Instead, select the little drop-down arrow below the paste icon. There you will find pasting options, such as "keep source formatting," which is the Microsoft Office default setting.
If you just press paste, then the clipboard will place everything from the copied source onto your document; text, background graphics and all.
To avoid this, simply select another paste option, namely "keep text only," which will just paste the text copied from the source. It will leave out all other background formatting.
You can even change the software default in paste options by selecting "set default paste." This way, you can set "text only" as your program default. Then you can just press the paste button to your heart's content and not be concerned about all of the extras that might get copied onto the clipboard.
There is a merge formatting paste option, too, if your goal is to combine the formatting from the copied source with that of your destination document.
The bottom line is that you have options to regulate how copied content gets pasted onto a Microsoft Office document.
You don't have to accept the software default setting, and that's the whole point of Microsoft Office.
Make it your own. Don't be afraid to customize, change defaults, and help make your work a little easier to manage.
Brett Fisher is a writer and Microsoft Office Specialist instructor residing in Carson City.