How To Use Paste Special (Video)

by Rich Menga on Dec 11, 2009 | 4 comments

Everybody knows how to copy and paste – but there are many who have never used the paste special function.

Why use paste special? Because it allows you to copy and paste text without carrying over all the formatting that may prove to be annoying to deal with.

In Windows (and assumedly Linux), paste special is easy. Simply use Edit/Paste Special from your application or choice, or use CTRL+SHIFT+V instead of just CTRL+V like you ordinarily would.

Bear in mind that paste special functions differently depending on which application you’re using.

See video below for details and examples of how it works.

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David M
Is paste special software you download or is it a Windows feature?

http://www.menga.net Rich Menga
It’s built-in, but is a per-application feature. As far as I’m aware, any rich text document editor has it.
Notepad for example does not have paste special because it doesn’t do anything but plain text so it’s not needed. But WordPad does (although in Windows 7 it’s accessible via the paste drop-down menu and not CTRL+SHIFT+V).

David Kennedy
Yes, this is very application specific, AFAIK. For instance, there’s a lot more options with the “Paste Special” in Excel.
Sure wish it was built in to the OS…
http://www.peterbasch.com pbasch
Paste Special in Word is particularly powerful. Not only can you lose all formatting and just paste the text (which is great if you don’t want to mess up your styles in Word), but you can also paste text as a picture – very useful, sometimes. I tell my clients to use Word’s Paste Special all the time.