Learn Excel’s Innovative Keyboard Shortcut for Effortless Format-Free Pasting

Microsoft Excel has many keyboard shortcuts, but surprisingly, the option to paste without formatting isn’t one of them. That’s finally changing with a new update that Microsoft is testing.

Related: What Is the Office Insider Program?

Microsoft said in a blog post, “it’s common to copy text from a web page, an email, or another document, and then paste it into Excel. Often, your goal is to match the format that’s already in place in the cell or range where you’re pasting. Until now, it was not possible to paste as plain text using shortcut keys.”

Microsoft has rolled out a new keyboard shortcut in Excel for Windows, starting in the Office Insiders Beta Channel with version 2210 (Build 15726.20000) or later. You can now press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste content into an Excel sheet without also pasting the original formatting, unlike the usual Ctrl+V shortcut, which retains the original text formatting.

Microsoft

There were already a few ways to paste in Excel without formatting, like with the floating Paste Options box that appears after pasting content, or opening the Paste Special dialog with Ctrl+Alt+V and selecting “Text.” However, all of those require more than one mouse click or keyboard press, which the new shortcut finally fixes.

Microsoft says the option is “coming soon” to Excel for Mac.

Source: Office Blog

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