Chris
Jason KottkeI never ever ever ever ever ever ever want to paste text with styles intact.
Steve Portigal@jkottke different strokes - I do it all the time and it saves so much tsuris
Ken Disbrow@jkottke Right? Keyboard remapping is a gift, one I wish I never had to use, but a gift nonetheless
Michael@jkottke It’s maddening. I love this little utility. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pure-paste/id1611378436?mt=12
Pure Paste
How many times have you pasted some text into an email and ended up with a mess of different font sizes? Pure Paste lets you paste as plain text by default. It sits in the menu bar and clears formatting (fonts, colors, bold, links, tables, etc.) from the text you copy. However, it does not touch un…
Blake Eskin@jkottke Pastebot has been transformative for my work and I wish there were an equivalent iOS app
One thing it doesn’t do is strip query parameters in URLs, that’s an amazing feature @michaelrjohnson
Dagnabbit, Pascaline! 💥@michaelrjohnson
I use PureText, have been using it for years (Windows).
hyperjeff@michaelrjohnson @jkottke nice find, good options
Joris van Zundert@michaelrjohnson That app is a pure godsent! Thanks for the link. (Should have remembered there's an app for anything.) @jkottke
Doug Wilson@jkottke Evergreen boost.
Gene Thomas @jkottke
If it is relatively short, I paste into a url field first, select all, paste it where needed
If it is relatively short, I paste into a url field first, select all, paste it where needed
Mike Lapidakis@jkottke And Shift + Cmd + V should be a universal shortcut to paste without styles. Why doesn’t it work in MS apps?!
Jeroen van Bergen
Mike Johnston@jkottke
Never is a long time...
Never is a long time...
cyanbane@jkottke When I copy text I have muscle memory that opens up Notepad and pastes then select all -> recopy. I do this for everything.
Pip Of Suffolk
Craig Hockenberry@jkottke Same. I do this on every Mac I own: https://furbo.org/2015/03/30/paste-without-style/
Paste Without Style • furbo.org
I agree with Buzz Anderson: “Paste-with-styling is one of the worst software inventions of all time.” Every time I mention the workaround shown below, there are many retweets and favorites. Clearly, there are a lot of people that feel the same as Buzz and me. The solution is surprisingly simple: make Paste and Match Style […]
Blake Garner@chockenberry @jkottke @flargh If only outlook for mac always had this menu option available. Contextually whe that menu item doesn't exist it just beeps and doesn't paste.
Chris Schildhorn@trode @chockenberry @jkottke @flargh I have not so bad result using Pure Paste https://sindresorhus.com/pure-paste
Colin Devroe@chockenberry I do the same. It only gets me in electron apps.
Benj Azose@chockenberry @jkottke I no longer see a screen that looks like this (or allows me this level of configuration), but this did fix the dumb keyboard mapping that my Microsoft keyboard came with by default on my Mac, so thank you!
Sören@chucker @chockenberry @jkottke Thank you. You have to enter the exact string for the value to make the modification, but now I have it working exactly the way that I want!
Leon Cowle@chockenberry @jkottke Count me in as one of the “… lot of people who don’t know how simple it is to fix this little annoyance.” who TIL about this. Thanks Craig!!
@chockenberry I know you're not my personal tech support, but I figured asking doesn't hurt. Your trick is working great. Except in screenshots. When I take a screenshot using Shift-Cmd-4, and then click the thumbnail that appears before it saves it to disk, I can no longer copy&paste markup items (like arrows&squares). It just beeps on paste. But that's a built-in O/S thing, it's not an app, so I don't know how to add an exception for it (it doesn't have its own Edit menu to override). Ideas?
Florin B@chockenberry @jkottke works lika a charm
Raineer 
🦆@chockenberry @jkottke "paste without style" sounds so hipster I love it
Von Xylofon
Heiko Rupp@chockenberry @jkottke And now I am confused what to type in, as in my DE language the menu shows the translated version. I wish Apple had put a way to only show available values ….
Victor Caston@pilhuhn @chockenberry @jkottke
I have a global macro set (in Keyboard Maestro) to execute the following shell script:
pbpaste | pbcopy
followed by command-V
(Seems to work everywhere. Keyboard Maestro is great.)
CharlieG@chockenberry @jkottke Ohhhh shit I never thought of that. Thank you!!
Conor Nash@chockenberry @jkottke just did this!
Matthias
vga256@chockenberry @jkottke TIL. Thank you for this!
Josh Wold@chockenberry @jkottke whoa! I’ve been doing Ctrl + Shift + V (or whatever) for a decade.
Matthew Burton@chockenberry @jkottke this app-free solution is great for those who use Macs on heavily locked-down government networks, and the IRS is going to get better because I found out about this, I kid you not.
Worth noting that in Outlook for Mac, “without style” basically means it disregards the typeface and size of the text you’re copying. Italics and similar formatting are preserved when pasting.
Jan Eden@chockenberry @jkottke For some apps, it's "Paste and Match Formatting".
Arthur@jkottke holding “all the buttons left of my space bar” + Shift + V.
Every. Single. Time.
Every. Single. Time.
Dwight Silverman@jkottke I often want to paste without styling, but WITH existing links.
Pamela Oliver@dsilverman This. The main problem with paste unformatted. And sometimes I bold and italics intact, but matching the destination font. Merge styles in Windows MS often works out about ok. But not always.
t3rse
Harris Lapiroff@jkottke Sometimes I want to preserve bold, italics, and links, but not color(???), background color(?????????), typeface, and size. That's the worst.
Marcin Wichary
Coles Street Pothole@jkottke Should be the default.
Ginevra@jkottke I love all these whizbang answers, I paste it into a Textedit doc or if it’s short, into the address bar, then copy back out.
Ward Cunningham@jkottke
I pasted some text once and the imbedded styles did exactly what I need in this one case. I was surprised and delighted. I've had my fun. Now get rid of this misfeature.
I pasted some text once and the imbedded styles did exactly what I need in this one case. I was surprised and delighted. I've had my fun. Now get rid of this misfeature.
condie@jkottke the crazy thing is that some non technical people love that feature. I have spent so much time fixing bugs with web rich text editors because it didn’t handle the styling properly on paste
Andres@jkottke literally never.
Doug Bowman@jkottke I’ve been using this little headless utility for years called Plain Clip to strip formatting and remove control characters for whatever is in my clipboard. Still works on M1/M2 macs too. I have the keyboard shortcut to invoke it from LaunchBar ingrained in muscle memory. https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/13732/plain-clip
Stephen Shankland@jkottke I do, very often, especially when copying hypertext, but not by default. I have Cmd-Shift-V in muscle memory to paste without formatting. Safari makes me add Opt key into the mix, which is annoying.
David - Forking Mad
WraithGear@jkottke I KNOW! RIGHT!?
Make me choose from the like 6 paste types when i am doing the rare format theft. Text/Vaule only for the constant mundane pasting
Make me choose from the like 6 paste types when i am doing the rare format theft. Text/Vaule only for the constant mundane pasting
Tracy Boland@remindme 2 days
Autumn Mahoney 
@jkottke Agreed. It feels like someone's trying to make a gaudy-ass chaos website in Frontpage every time I do it by mistake.
terrehbyte@jkottke This is relatable for me, except when copying and pasting within the same document, in which case the answer ends up being "sometimes with styles!". Especially when copying lists w/ sublists!
But going from a web page to a document? Definitely as plain text.
Ctrl+Shift+V sometimes does this, but not all programs support it unfortunately.
phi1997@jkottke
Sometimes you might if you want to bring a particular style over, like if placeholder text is a different color to indicate it should be replaced, but that shouldn't be the default
Sometimes you might if you want to bring a particular style over, like if placeholder text is a different color to indicate it should be replaced, but that shouldn't be the default
Cykonot@jkottke sane defaults gang
Teknovis@jkottke I regularly paste with and without formatting in Windows. The thing that annoys me is the inconsistent shortcut keys that vary from app to app.
Tom Riley@jkottke Someone on birdsite was once saying there should be a name for the anxiety that starts building up when you have an unpasted item in your copy clipboard. One person replied “Antisipastion”.
@jkottke YES, my 2cents. It should remove all formatting by default with an option to keep formatting. Not the other way around (ie keep formatting with option to remove).
Richard RatheAgree. At minimum “paste with styles” should NEVER be the default! #ux #gui #computers
The Jack of Sandwich@jkottke I wouldn't go as far as NEVER, but would be satisfied with a right-click "Paste with formatting" option to handle those cases.