tips_md_wht.gif

Tip of the Month
December

Previous Tips

PASTING UNFORMATTED TEXT 
A MACRO SOLUTION


  Do you get the jitters when you think about writing a
  macro? No reason to be intimidated. It's easy. If you have
  ten minutes, I can show you how - and this is a macro
  you'll use, too.

  Here's what I want the macro to do. I want to change the
  behavior of the Word paste shortcut key combination,
  Ctrl+V, so it pastes just the stuff in the clipboard, and
  not the formatting. Here's how:

  > Start Word. (Tough one, eh?)

  > Bring up Visual Basic for Applications by clicking Tools
    | Macro | Macros. Type a good macro name in the box -
    say, PasteUnformatted - and click Create.

  > Unless somebody (or something) has your "normal" template
    locked away, VBA comes to life, and writes a little
    program for you that looks something like this:

  Sub PasteUnformatted()
  '
  ' PasteUnformatted Macro
  ' Macro created 10/18/2001 by Phineas T. Farquahrt
  '

  End Sub

  > Immediately before that "End Sub" line, you need to type
    one short, sweet line of VBA code. When you're done, the
    macro should look like this:

  Sub PasteUnformatted()
  '
  ' PasteUnformatted Macro
  ' Macro created 10/18/2001 by Phineas T. Farquahrt
  '
  Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
  End Sub

  > You're done with the programming part of the exercise.
    (Really!) In VBA, click File | Close and return to
    Microsoft Word.

  > Now you need to tell Word to run that macro every time
    you press Ctrl+V. That's easy, too. Click Tools |
    Customize. Make sure "Save in" shows normal.dot and click
    the Keyboard button.

  > In the Categories box, pick Macros. In the Macros box,
    pick PasteUnformatted. Click inside the Press New
    Shortcut Key box and hit Ctrl+V. Click Assign.

  > You're done. From that point on, every time you press
    Ctrl+V, Word will paste the contents of the clipboard,
    and ignore any formatting.

Home