Why does text copied from a web page bring its fonts and colors into Word?

Question

Weirdo · Accepted Answer

Because Word keeps the source formatting by default. The clipboard carries formatting along with the text, and Ctrl+V in Word pastes it as-is; choose Keep Text Only after pasting, or change the default in Options.

Microsoft's help page says it directly: by default, Word preserves the original formatting when you paste using Ctrl+V, the Paste button, or right-click Paste. The web page's font, size, color, highlight and even links come along with the words, which is why a mismatched block appears in your document.

After pasting, a small Paste Options button appears; choose Keep Text Only and the text takes on your document's formatting. Merge Formatting is the in-between option that tries to match the surrounding text. In Google Docs the official shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+V, paste without formatting.

In Word, go to File > Options > Advanced, and under Cut, copy, and paste set Pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only. From then on, Ctrl+V on anything copied from a browser gives you clean plain text.

Why does text copied from a web page bring its fonts and colors into Word?

Ctrl+V means Keep Source Formatting

One-off fix: Keep Text Only

Permanent fix: change the default