Text pasted from websites, emails, or other documents often brings along strange fonts, colors, highlights, and spacing that clash with the rest of your Word document. Instead of fixing each property one by one, you can strip the formatting away in a click or a keystroke. This guide covers every way to remove formatting in Word: from selected text, from the whole document, from paragraphs, and when pasting, plus how to find formatting that won’t go away.
Quick Answer
Select the text (press Ctrl + A for the whole document) and click Clear All Formatting on the Home tab (the letter A with an eraser). The text returns to the default Normal style. For keyboard fans: Ctrl + Space clears character formatting and Ctrl + Q clears paragraph formatting.
Method 1: Clear All Formatting Button
- Select the text you want to clean up. Press Ctrl + A (Command + A on Mac) to select everything.
- On the Home tab, in the Font group, click Clear All Formatting (an A with a pink eraser).
This removes fonts, sizes, colors, bold, italics, and applied styles like headings, resetting the text to the Normal style. It does not remove highlighting; use the Text Highlight Color button and choose No Color for that.
Method 2: Keyboard Shortcuts
| Shortcut (Windows) | What it removes |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Space | Character formatting: font, size, color, bold, italic, underline (keeps paragraph style) |
| Ctrl + Q | Paragraph formatting: indents, spacing, alignment (keeps the style) |
| Ctrl + Shift + N | Applies the Normal style |
Combine them: select all, press Ctrl + Space, then Ctrl + Q, then Ctrl + Shift + N for a complete reset. On a Mac, use the Clear All Formatting button or Control + Space where supported.
Method 3: Paste Without Formatting
The best fix is to avoid messy formatting in the first place:
- Press Ctrl + Shift + V to paste as plain text (available in current versions of Word for Microsoft 365).
- Or paste normally, click the Paste Options button that appears, and choose Keep Text Only (the clipboard with an “A”).
- To make plain-text pasting the default, go to File > Options > Advanced, and under Cut, copy, and paste, set Pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only.
Method 4: Styles Pane
- Select the text.
- Open the Styles pane with Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S (or click the small arrow in the Styles group).
- Click Clear All at the top of the list.
Find Formatting That Won’t Go Away
- Reveal Formatting: Press Shift + F1 to see exactly what’s applied to the selected text, including hidden paragraph settings.
- Highlighting and shading: Clear highlighting with Text Highlight Color > No Color, and paragraph shading with Shading > No Color (Home tab, Paragraph group).
- Hyperlinks: Select the text and press Ctrl + Shift + F9 to turn links into plain text.
- Borders: Use Home > Borders > No Border.
- Text boxes and tables: Clear All Formatting doesn’t remove tables or text boxes. Convert a table with Table Layout > Convert to Text.
- Tracked changes: Formatting changes shown in the margin are tracked edits. Accept or reject them on the Review tab.
Blue underlines or a blue line across the page aren’t regular formatting; see how to remove the blue line in Word.
To stop Word from turning “1.” into a list, see how to stop automatic numbering.
If Word crashes or freezes while you work, try open Word in Safe Mode to rule out add-ins.
For boilerplate you insert often, learn how to use Quick Parts in Word.
Mac users can find font setup steps in our guide to installing fonts for Word on a Mac.
To mark text as removed without deleting it, cross out a word with strikethrough.
To set block quotes deliberately, see indenting on both sides.
To mark repeated terms, see how to highlight all instances of a word.
Related: How to Double Underline in Word.
Summary
- Select the text (Ctrl + A for everything).
- Click Clear All Formatting on the Home tab.
- Use Ctrl + Space and Ctrl + Q for character and paragraph formatting.
- Paste with Ctrl + Shift + V or Keep Text Only to avoid the problem.
- Remove highlighting, links, and borders separately.
Kermit Matthews is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with more than a decade of experience writing technology guides. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science and has spent much of his professional career in IT management.
He specializes in writing content about iPhones, Android devices, Microsoft Office, and many other popular applications and devices.