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When I use Gmail and Google Docs in Firefox, I often copy text from another HTML or PDF document.

When I then paste this into an email or document, I only want the actual text, but it includes the formatting from the original document which I then have to spend time cleaning up.

Is there a keyboard shortcut that allows pasting only the text without the formatting or a way to make this the default behavior in these apps?

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  • I'm the author. I'm voting to close this question since it's quite old.
    – Stefan Lasiewski
    Commented Jun 23 at 20:58
  • 2
    @StefanLasiewski I believe this question still applies, even if it's old. As such, I voted to leave it open.
    – galacticninja
    Commented Jun 24 at 1:39
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    @StefanLasiewski I agree with galacticninja The question remains relevant. I updated it to make it more current. Hope you don't mind. I think the question is a good one and relevant 14 years later 👍
    – Blindspots ♦
    Commented Jun 25 at 16:46

5 Answers 5

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96

The following keyboard shortcuts will paste the contents without formatting in Gmail and Google Docs:

PC (Chrome, Firefox): Ctrl+Shift+V

Mac (Chrome, Firefox): Command ⌘+Shift ⇧+V

Mac (Safari): Command ⌘+Shift ⇧ + Option ⌥ + V

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11

It's not a webapp answer, but I use a program called PureText. It just sits in your system tray and provides a hotkey (configurable) that will paste the current clipboard contents as plain text. I absolutely love this feature. I have it set to WINDOWS+v

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If you're the sort of person who always has a terminal window open, and you're on OSX or another OS with shell commands that give you pipe-access to the system clipboard, you can set up something like this:

alias stripstyle='pbpaste | pbcopy'

Then whenever you want to paste without formatting, just go into your terminal and type stripstyle and voila, whatever's in the clipboard is deformatted.

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If you are using Firefox with the Adblock Plus extension installed, you need to do a little configuration first.

  1. Type in about:config to the address bar and press enter.
  2. Accept a warning about being careful, if it appears.
  3. Search for extensions.adblockplus.sidebar_key.
  4. Change the value to just Accel Shift U instead of Accel Shift V, Accel Shift U.

If you also use the Resurrect Pages extension, you may want to pick something other than U.

AdblockPlus decided years ago they would leave this conflict in place.

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-1

What I do is to open a tab of Google Translate, paste it there, and cut from there, and then paste to where I need (Gmail, Docs, whatever).

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