Global Paste As Text

[thenonhacker]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Pressing a Win shortcut will paste any copied text, as plain/unformatted text. The clipboard should not be modified when this action is invoked.

It should behave as if we used Microsoft Word's Paste Special -> Unformatted Text, but for any app, and with a sensible WinKey shortcut. Since Win+V is already reserved for viewing Clipboard History in PowerToys, maybe we should assign Win+Shift+V to this very useful action; up to you guys.

• This feature should work in BOTH Windows 10 and 11.
• This feature should work with one quick keyboard sequence, no UI, no additional clicks or menus.
• Nice to have: An option to hear a sound, indicating that you really have pasted unformatted text (see: Pure Text)

Scenario when this would be used?

When working with apps that support rich text, users often find the need to paste rich text as plain text, so that they have more control on how to format text that is pasted.

If they don't have this control, then they have to deal with workarounds, such as: opening Notepad first, pasting text there, and recopying it, then going back to the rich text app, and pasting the plain/unformatted text copied from Notepad. By pasting in Notepad, you force the clipboard's rich text formatting to be ignored.

Supporting information

Articles that teach users on how to paste rich text as unformatted text:

• How to Strip Formatting When You Copy and Paste Text: 5 Ways
• How to Paste as Plain Text in Windows 11/10 -- 5 Ways

Here are the apps that implement this feature:

• Pure Text by Steve Miller -- It's not perfect, but I am relying on this now, but this is the kind of applet that should be part of Windows by default, or PowerToys

• Figma -- They have to implement their own "Paste as Text", invoked by using Ctrl+Shift+V

• WordPress -- WordPress comes with a feature that allows you to paste any external text into WordPress and won’t keep all of its internal formattings.

• Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox all support Ctrl+Shift+V as a keyboard shortcut for “paste as plain text.”

• Programs in the Microsoft Office suite naturally do things a little differently, and the way to paste as plain text is to hit Ctrl+Alt+V and then select “Unformatted Text”. Alternatively, you can do Alt, H, V, T. Note that the keys are pressed and released in sequence, not held simultaneously.

Weird Workarounds from this page

• "One trick I use if I need to strip formatting from the clipboard is to use the key sequence Win+R, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Esc. This opens the Run dialog, pastes the clipboard into the edit box, then copies the text back out."

• "If I’m on a Web page, I use Ctrl+F instead of Win+R, using the Web browser’s “Find text on page” dialog as the temporary edit control."

[crutkas]

/dup #1684

[ghost]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!