One of my favorite utilities is Steve Miller’s PureText. It lets you copy-and-paste text while removing all of the formatting. This is extremely useful; in fact, I used it twice just while writing this blog post.
For example, I often want to copy code snippets from my IDE, Eclipse, into Microsoft Word. Here’s what the code looks like in Eclipse:
And here’s what it looks like after pasting into Word:
I blame Bill Gates.
However, with PureText, I simply paste using a different shortcut (Windows+V), and get only the text, without any of the formatting:
Mission accomplished.
(By the way, Microsoft Word allows you to remove formatting from pasted text, but only after you paste it. Using PureText is faster, and it works with all applications; not just Word.)
January 19th, 2009 at 3:35 am
Word also allows you to paste the text only; the Edit/Paste Special… menu. Among other options, it has “unformatted text”.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:26 am
I know. But that requires several mouse clicks, whereas with PureText I can just use one keystroke to paste the text (Windows + V). And PureText works with every program, not just Word.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:10 am
This is a good suggestion, but you could also create a macro in MS word using the paste special option, and bind the macro to a key in word!