If you’re pasting text from one application to another, it can get infuriating when the formatting from the copied text gets transported into the target document. If you copy text from an email into Word, for example–or vice versa–you can end up with clashing styles that take an unnecessary amount of time to tidy up.
Mac OSX also has an option for Paste and Match Style. In the vast majority of cases, that’s what I actually want to do.
Out of the box, there are two options. You can right click on the target document and choose Paste and Match Style from the list. Or you can use the standard keyboard shortcut Command + Option + Shift + V, which involves both remembering it and some digit dexterity.
But there’s a third option: overriding the default paste behavior. Here’s how:
Open system preferences and choose Keyboard.
Choose the Shortcuts tab from the top. In the list at left, choose App Shortcuts. Click on the + symbol.
Set the application/s. From the Application drop-down menu, choose All Applications (or you can specify and individual application, like Mail, if you prefer).
In the Menu Title field, enter “Paste and Match Style”. Enter it exactly as is. It’s not asking you make up a name–it’s asking you for the exact name of the existing menu command.
In the Keyboard Shortcut field, press Command + V (or whatever shortcut you want to use). That will capture the new shortcut. Command + V will override the regular paste command. You can also specify a different keyboard shortcut if you’d like to have the option of both.
Click the Add button.
You’ll then see it added to the list of available shortcuts.
Each time you use it might only save you a second or two, but those add up.
But there are, unfortunately, some instances where it doesn’t work as expected. So your mileage might vary. If you find that it’s doing some odd things, you can simply remove the shortcut by highlighting it in the list of available shortcuts and then hitting the minus button. Or you can set it only for specific applications rather than all applications.
Lynn says
Sadly doesn’t work for Excel 2016 on Mac. OS Sierra. If anyone has gotten it to work for Excel 2016 on Mac please post a reply. Thanks.
Corry says
Looked like this might be the answer but I can’t get it to work for Excel 2016 on a Mac. Has anyone got this working for Excel 2016?
gumpyOldguy says
Thanks much for this. The problem that needs asking though is why Apple chooses such poor defaults. And the answer is: if they didn’t turn on all their bad ideas by default, no one would ever bother to turn them on, except the programmers who made them, and they would stay turned off, where they belong.
chirochick says
It’s taken me some serious woman hours to figure this problem out. You are a star! Why is this not plastered all over the Microsoft forums? It’s such a common and frustrating problem.
Tyler says
You can do this by editing the keyboard shortcuts in the newer Microsoft Word programs. Just go to Tools, Keyboard Commands, find PasteText, and then assign that to Command+V and Boom. Saved your life right there.
Greg S says
Thank you! Perfect fix for something I knew how to do in Windows but not in Mac
Will says
Thank you for this.
chirochick says
It was your fix that helped me Tyler; my reply above was supposed to go here. Thank you! So simple when you know how!!!!
Wayynnee says
Thanks a lot for this, actually worked!
David says
This worked for me on MS 2016 Mac, although under Tools/Cutomize keyboard
Jack Bochsler says
Bless you – why is this not the default? Who EVER wanted the original style preserved?
Linda says
Saved a world of time and frustration – thank you.
John says
Running Word for Mac 15.28 (Office 365) on Sierra 10.12.1
Cannot get this shortcut to work for some reason. Tired both “Paste and Match Style” and “Paste and Match Destination Formatting” without success.
Great tip for those that can get it to work, though. Would love to figure out what I’m doing wrong.
Sophie Béraud says
OMG life saver!! And I also added your CMD+P shortcut for print to PDF. Brilliant. Thanks a million!!
Ryan says
Wow I have really been needing this! You rock!
Lise says
This is brilliant! Thank you for sharing. (I had to use “Paste and Match Formatting” instead of “…Style” to make it work, but it works beautifully now!)
Irene says
Hi, it worked for me.
Thank you so much!
Irene
Grace says
Doesn’t work
Tyler says
Go to Tools, keyboard shortcuts, add PasteText, Assign it to Command + V, and press assign and there ya go! Problem solved!
Siri says
Thank you!!!!!
Marc says
Not working. Have also tried “Paste and Match Formatting” and “Paste and Match Destination Formatting”. Very frustrating
Mustapha says
Didn’t worked for me and still struggling
Billy Shall says
Hello, This worked as expected for pasting into an email but it will not allow you to paste text into OSX Mail’s search field for some reason.
LSonna says
Didn’t work for me, but I’ve got a slightly different problem with el Capitan 10.11.6. In Chrome and Word, I can’t highlight text that I want to copy and paste.
Rob says
On my mac doing this meant that I could not paste an email address into the address field on mac mail.
David says
Interesting. Thanks for the tip. I’ve come across a few odd behaviors from time to time.
Lake says
What if you just want to paste the style (not the content)?
ms says
“Paste and Match Formatting” for Word 15
Kyle says
Searching all of the internet “Paste and Match Style” wasn’t working for me. I finally found the answer in your comment, THANK YOU!
KB says
In word 365 – you need to now add “Paste and Match Destination Formatting” – FYI. I edit resumes and so this comes in handy. thanks!
pm&[email protected] says
Thank so very much… it works great! It was driving crazy using almost every finger plus another hand just to do this simple task. For me it is not so much about saving time, but saving my sanity. :)
MGaviria says
You may also change the shortcut only for a given application, e.g. Pages, which I did now. So far I’m happy with this.
evankirsh says
It would work, except now you can’t paste into fields that are plain text only, such as the address field. When you try to Paste and Match Style (command+v), you just get an “oops” chime because that’s not an option for that field. So, the workaround would be to assign another easy shortcut for the standard Paste for those annoying circumstances.
Evgeniy says
Thanks a lot!
Bill aka InMyImage says
THANK YOU!!!