Way to Force Word to Always Paste Special | Unformatted

[Eric Wolfe]

I'm looking for a way to change the default behavior of keys CTRL+C and
CTRL+P so that when I copy from Yahoo/IE5.5 into Word 97 I don't pull in all
the HTML tags and other doodads that seem to make Word go ga-ga. I just
want to cut and paste plain text via keystroke to accomplish what I must do
now by selecting Edit from the menu and then Paste Special and Unformatted
from there. (Usually after I have forgotten and pasted some long section of
a webpage into Word and have to wait for undo to undo it.)

TIA,

Eric

 

[Mark Burch]

I'm looking for a way to change the default behavior of keys CTRL+C and
CTRL+P so that when I copy from Yahoo/IE5.5 into Word 97 I don't pull in all
the HTML tags and other doodads that seem to make Word go ga-ga. I just
want to cut and paste plain text via keystroke to accomplish what I must do
now by selecting Edit from the menu and then Paste Special and Unformatted
from there. (Usually after I have forgotten and pasted some long section of
a webpage into Word and have to wait for undo to undo it.)

TIA,

Eric

Create a macro to paste unformatted. Something like this:

Sub MyPasteMacro
Selection.PasteSpecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText
End Sub

Then, in Tools/Customise, assign the keyboard combination Ctrl+V to this
macro.

Mark Burch

 

[Steve]

I'm looking for a way to change the default behavior of keys CTRL+C and
CTRL+P so that when I copy from Yahoo/IE5.5 into Word 97 I don't pull in all
the HTML tags and other doodads that seem to make Word go ga-ga. I just
want to cut and paste plain text via keystroke to accomplish what I must do
now by selecting Edit from the menu and then Paste Special and Unformatted
from there. (Usually after I have forgotten and pasted some long section of
a webpage into Word and have to wait for undo to undo it.)

I did this by recording a macro edit|paste special|unformatted text. The
text of this macro in the editor is:

Sub pastespecial()
'
' pastespecial Macro
'
Selection.pastespecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText, Placement:= _
wdInLine, DisplayAsIcon:=False
End Sub

I then assigned this macro to the <Ctrl>V keystroke using:
Tools|Customise|Keyboard|macros|pastespecial

Finally I set the insert key to work as the normal paste key so that I can
easily paste in pictures or other formatted text. It also saves me turning
on 'Overtype' accidentally. I did this by:
Tools|Options|Edit|Use the INS key for paste

Hope that is clear.

Steve

 

[Eric Wolfe]

Create a macro to paste unformatted. Something like this:

Sub MyPasteMacro
Selection.PasteSpecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText
End Sub

Then, in Tools/Customise, assign the keyboard combination Ctrl+V to this
macro.

I did this - it worked once but not on a second document. (???)

I copied the content of the macro code Steve had generously supplied into
the Visual Basic Editor window and saved it under SPaste. Then I went to
Word's customize (not realizing, at first, I was still in the VB editor and
not Word!), slected Customize Keyboard, selected Macro from the Categories
list and SPaste as the selected Macro.

In retracing my steps to write this note I discovered what happened. I
tried to get smart and to remap both CTRL+V and Ins as the keys that would
activate the macro (I liked Steve's suggestion to remap the largely
worthless and already duplicated overwrite key). I don't know why, but when
I looked in the rightmost list that shows current key assignment it now says
"Ins,V" and has no mention of the CTRL+V combo, although I remember seeing
both entries on the list the first time I did it. I assumed that INS,V
meant first press INS then V and when I did, voila, Paste Special!!!!

Thanks to you, Mark and to Steve for your prompt and complete solution to
the problem. I'll probably have one more question about this when I get to
work on Monday We have Word templates and stuff force fed to us on the LAN
and I seem to recall someone saying that personal changes to the Normal
style sheet are magically overwritten any time admin changes the master
style sheet. We'll see. Thanks again! No more forgetting to use the menu
to Paste Special and ending up with screenfuls of HTML junk! That's GOT to
save me some time!

Eric

 

[Eric Wolfe]

Selection.pastespecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText, Placement:= _
wdInLine, DisplayAsIcon:=False
End Sub

In my reply to Mark I mentioned I had just copied your code over into my VB
editor in Word. I have two questions. First, is the underline at the end
of the first line a continuation character? Second, what are the
ramifications of changing DisplayAsIcon to True? I couldn't see any
practical effect on the screen when I changed it and there's no direct entry
for that command in the VB help screens, at least none that I could find.
Google wasn't much help, either.

TIA,

Eric

 

[Mark Burch]

editor in Word. I have two questions. First, is the underline at the end
of the first line a continuation character?

Yes.

Second, what are the

ramifications of changing DisplayAsIcon to True? I couldn't see any
practical effect on the screen when I changed it and there's no direct entry
for that command in the VB help screens, at least none that I could find.
Google wasn't much help, either.

I think it depends on what data is on the clipboard. If it is just some text
then DisplayAsIcon won't make any difference. But if you have an Excel
spreadsheet on the clipboard then if you set DisplayAsIcon to True, when you
paste into Word you will see an Excel icon in your Word document instead of
the actual data. When you double click on the Excel Icon it will open up the
spreadsheet.

Mark

 

[Eric Wolfe]

I think it depends on what data is on the clipboard. If it is just some text
then DisplayAsIcon won't make any difference. But if you have an Excel
spreadsheet on the clipboard then if you set DisplayAsIcon to True, when you
paste into Word you will see an Excel icon in your Word document instead of
the actual data. When you double click on the Excel Icon it will open up the
spreadsheet.

Thanks! I will do some experimenting to see what I can discover. Can you
tell me if the Visual Basic editor built into Word97 is powerful enough to
write text analysis programs, i.e. providing a word list from a document
with a frequency count alongside each word?

Eric

 

[Mark Burch]

Thanks! I will do some experimenting to see what I can discover. Can you
tell me if the Visual Basic editor built into Word97 is powerful enough to
write text analysis programs, i.e. providing a word list from a document
with a frequency count alongside each word?

I should say definitely yes.

Mark

 

[Eric Wolfe]

Hi folks,

Back again to report on the practical aspects of remapping Paste Special |
Unformatted to Ctrl+V via a macro:

1) It did not take. For whatever reason, going to a document that had
already had embedded macros caused it to disappear.

2) It's not really a global fix. I would probably be happy to permanently
disable the default part of Paste the way I have physically removed the
CapsLock key and the Insert key that sits perilously close to the backspace
on my keyboard.

The problem I encounter, even when the macro works, is the enormous
flexibility of the Word interface. I realized after implementing the change
that I am just as likely to paste by right-clicking or via the toolbar
buttons or the menu options, and of course, those Paste options all default
to dragging in unneeded (at least in this case) HTML objects and now pages
of single column accent and foreign language characters.

At one point in the process of creating the macro it listed (IIRC) EditPaste
as the default value of the CTRL+V key. Can I assume that it's also the
function called by right-clicking into the Paste dialog? Is that really
where I need to make the change local? Is there any way to change the
default behavior of EditPaste or is it an inalienable system function?

Can I at least change the default right click Paste function to Paste |
Special | Unformatted?

Thanks!

Eric