How to Copy and Paste in Word: Shortcuts, Paste Options and Tricks

You paste a quote from a website into your report, and suddenly half the page is in blue Arial with a grey background. Knowing how to copy and paste in Word properly isn't about ⌘C and ⌘V — it's about deciding what comes along with the text, and getting more than one thing across at a time.

This guide covers the basic shortcuts, Word's Paste Options, how to make clean pasting the default, and two built-in features most people never discover: the Office Clipboard and the Spike.

The Basic Shortcuts

Microsoft Word uses the same shortcuts as the rest of your computer:

Action	Windows	Mac
Copy	Ctrl+C	⌘C
Cut	Ctrl+X	⌘X
Paste	Ctrl+V	⌘V
Paste Special	Ctrl+Alt+V	⌃⌘V
Select all	Ctrl+A	⌘A
Undo	Ctrl+Z	⌘Z

You can also right-click a selection, or use the Copy, Cut and Paste buttons at the far left of the Home tab.

Selecting text faster:

• Double-click a word to select it.
• Triple-click to select the whole paragraph.
• Ctrl+click (Windows) or ⌘+click (Mac) inside a sentence to select the sentence.
• Shift + arrow keys extend the selection; add Ctrl (Windows) or ⌥ (Mac) to move word by word.

Paste Options: Choose What Comes Along

Right after you paste, a small Paste Options button appears next to the text. Click it — or on Windows, press Ctrl right after pasting — and you get the key choices:

• Keep Source Formatting (K) — the text looks exactly like it did where you copied it.
• Merge Formatting (M) — keeps basics like bold and italics, but adopts your document's font and size.
• Keep Text Only (T) — plain text, no styling, no links, no images.
• Picture (U) — pastes the content as an image (available for some content types).

The letters work as shortcuts while the menu is open, so Ctrl+V, Ctrl, T becomes a quick "paste clean" sequence on Windows.

How to Paste Text Only in Word

Most of the time, Keep Text Only is what you want. A few faster routes:

• Windows (Microsoft 365): recent versions of Word support Ctrl+Shift+V to paste text only. In older versions, that shortcut pastes formatting instead, so use the Paste Options method above.
• Mac: choose Edit → Paste and Match Formatting, or press ⌥⇧⌘V.
• Any version: Paste Special (Ctrl+Alt+V / ⌃⌘V) and choose Unformatted Text.

If you already pasted the messy version, select it and press Ctrl+Space (Windows) or ⌃Space (Mac) to clear character formatting.

For doing this in every app — not just Word — see how to always paste as plain text.

Make Clean Pasting the Default

If you almost never want the source formatting, change Word's defaults once:

• Windows: File → Options → Advanced, scroll to Cut, copy, and paste, and set Pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only.
• Mac: Word → Settings (Preferences) → Edit, then adjust the Cut and paste options.

You can set different behavior for pasting within the same document, between documents and from other programs. A good setup for most people: keep formatting inside Word, text only from everywhere else.

Copy Formatting Instead of Text

Sometimes you want the look of one paragraph applied to another.

• Format Painter. Click inside the text with the style you like, then click the paintbrush on the Home tab and select the text you want to restyle. Double-click the paintbrush to keep it active for several selections; press Esc to stop.
• Styles. For anything repeated — every heading, every caption — use the Styles gallery on the Home tab. It's faster than painting and keeps the whole document consistent.

Copy Several Things at Once: The Office Clipboard

Here's a feature hiding in plain sight. On Windows, click the small arrow in the corner of the Clipboard group on the Home tab, and a panel opens showing your recent copies.

• It holds up to 24 items copied in Office apps.
• Click any item to paste it, or Paste All to drop them in sequence.
• It's shared across Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

The catch: it's Windows-only, it lives inside Office, and it's cleared when you close all Office apps. For a broader look at collecting and pasting multiple things, see how to copy and paste multiple items at once.

The Spike: Word's Forgotten Collector

The Spike is an old Word feature that's still there and works on Windows and Mac. It lets you gather text from several places in a document and paste it all together.

1. Select some text and press Ctrl+F3 (Windows) or ⌘F3 (Mac). The text is cut and added to the Spike.
2. Repeat for every other piece you want to collect.
3. Place your cursor and press Ctrl+Shift+F3 (Windows) or ⌘⇧F3 (Mac) to paste everything, in order, and empty the Spike.

Because the Spike cuts rather than copies, press Undo after each spike if you want to keep the original text where it was. On Macs, you may need to hold Fn for the function keys.

Copying Between Word and Other Apps

A few things worth knowing when content crosses app boundaries:

• Excel tables paste as Word tables by default. Paste Special → Paste Link keeps them connected to the spreadsheet so you can update them later.
• Web pages carry hidden styling and links — the text-only paste is usually the right choice.
• Google Docs to Word generally keeps headings and lists intact; our guide to copying and pasting in Google Docs covers the other direction.
• Images can be pasted straight in. Use the Layout Options button that appears next to them to control text wrapping.

The Real Problem: One Clipboard Slot

The Office Clipboard and the Spike both help, but only inside Office. The moment you're assembling a document from a browser, an email, Slack and a PDF, you're back to one slot — every new copy erases the last.

Your operating system can help a little:

• Windows 11 has a built-in clipboard history: press Win+V to see recent items.
• macOS 26 Tahoe added a basic clipboard history in Spotlight (⌘Space, then ⌘4), though items expire after about eight hours and can't be pinned or organized.

Both are short-lived and simple. If you write in Word every day, a dedicated clipboard manager does a lot more.

Where Copaste Fits In

Copaste is a clipboard manager for Mac and Windows, with a Chrome extension that keeps your browser in the loop:

• Unlimited history. Everything you copy — from Word, the web or any other app — stays searchable, so you can gather every source first and paste in one pass.
• Paste as plain text from your history, so stray formatting never lands in your document.
• Pins and tags for things you reuse: a standard intro, a disclaimer, your signature block.
• Images and files, not just text.
• Local-first privacy. Your history stays on your device.

Quick Reference

• Copy / Cut / Paste: Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V (⌘ on Mac)
• Paste Special: Ctrl+Alt+V / ⌃⌘V
• Paste text only: Ctrl+V, Ctrl, T (Windows) · ⌥⇧⌘V (Mac)
• Default paste behavior: File → Options → Advanced → Cut, copy, and paste
• Office Clipboard: Home → Clipboard group arrow (Windows)
• Spike: Ctrl+F3 to collect, Ctrl+Shift+F3 to paste (⌘ on Mac)

Learn those, and copy and paste in Word stops being a formatting clean-up job. Add a real clipboard history on top, and you'll never re-copy something you already had.