Quickly Paste Without Format in Google Suite

If you’ve ever copied text over from an online resource to a document, you’ve likely noticed that the standard copy function doesn’t just copy the text, but also includes the formatting of the source material, such as font, size, bold, italics, or underline, font colors, or font highlight colors. While you sometimes might want to retain the source format, you may instead want the pasted content to match the format of the document into which you paste it.

Did you know that the Google Suite of apps has a universal shortcut for pasting without formatting? It works on both macOS and Windows. The shortcut uses the same keys as the shortcut for paste, only with the addition of holding the shift-key at the same time:

PC

Control+Shift+V

Mac

Command+Shift+V

Alternatively, you can right-click and select "paste without formatting"

Here’s an example of text copied and pasted normally (no shift) from MPR’s website (author’s name and contact changed):

About the author

Art Erikson • Reporter

eriksona@mpr.org • @arterikson

Art Erikson is *not* an arts reporter for MPR News.

Here’s the same copied text pasted using the paste without formatting shortcut:

About the author

Art Erikson • Reporter

eriksona@mpr.org • @arterikson

Art Erikson is *not* an arts reporter for MPR News.