Google Docs has a subtle way to remove formatting after pasting (or on any text). Sure enough, Paste and Match Style stripped everything out. I tested this by pasting styled text with a hyperlink and then pasting using match style, exporting the file as RTF (Rich Text Format), and examining the raw contents in BBEdit. It has the same effect, however, and the pasted-in text is just styled with whatever the paragraph formatting is at the insertion point. In Pages and in TextEdit, the wording for this option is misleading: you have to pick Edit > Paste and Match Style. In OpenOffice, it’s Edit > Paste Special, and then select Unformatted Text. In Nisus Writer Pro, it’s Edit > Paste > Paste Text Only.
You’ll find it spelled out in different ways in each app that lets you paste in text.
#How to copy and paste on google docs mac software#
In software that supports it, you can choose an option that lets you remove everything but the actual characters. Then, when you paste that elsewhere, you may get unexpected results or unnecessary formatting. When you copy text in many pieces of software, including text selected and copied in a browser window, OS X grabs a rich text version, which includes a variety of underlying formatting for text size, inline bold and italics, hypertext links, and other specifications.
I confess despite my decades of computing experience that it was just a few years ago I realized how widespread the support for such an option is!
A few colleagues were talking in a Slack team the other day about discovering “paste without formatting” and kicking themselves for only learning about it relatively recently.
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