If you’re a regular Microsoft Word user, you’ve probably noticed it’s missing a feature: a keyboard shortcut for pasting plaintext. Using the paste shortcut (Alt+V) brings in everything on your clipboard, formatting and all. Now, the company has introduced a new shortcut that pastes just the words.

In a Microsoft 365 Insider blog post, product manager Ali Forelli introduced the new shortcut as Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on Mac). Forelli notes that this an existing shortcut already works in other applications, such as Microsoft Teams, Word for the web, Google, and Gmail. Using the new key combo will help writers bring in text from outside sources without manually removing formatting such as font, size, type, and color.

It should be noted that Word has featured a “keep text only” option for many years. However, when a user pasted text into the application, they had to select that option from a drop-down menu that appeared at the end of the pasted text. However, the new keyboard shortcut will save users mouse clicks and keystrokes going forward. And given how much pasting goes on into Word, those clicks and strokes add up quickly.

The paste-text-only shortcut isn’t the only new keyboard combo added to Microsoft Word, however. The program also received shortcuts for “Copy Format Painter”(Ctrl+Shift+C), “Paste Format Painter” (Ctrl+Alt+V), and “Paste Special” (Alt+H+V+S).

Source: Microsoft 365 Insider