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TUAW Tip: Copy text formatting

by Dan Pourhadi Jan 29th 2006 at 11:00AM

When I'm writing an e-mail or fiddling in TextEdit, I often copy in text from another location (Safari, another e-mail, etc.). Doing that, of course, copies the formatting along with it, screwing up the consistency of the document. (So, say I'm writing a 12-point Arial doc in TextEdit; I copy over some 10-point Verdana bold text from Safari, and all of a sudden I have a single doc with two different kinds of formatting -- and selecting the text and reapplying my previous settings is a time-consuming pain in the butt.)

But Apple's aware of this hassle, and cleverly placed in a Copy Formatting feature, very similar to Word's Format Painter. Simply select the text with the formatting you want to copy and hit Command-Option-C. Now highlight the text you want re-formatted and apply the changes by keying Command-Option-V. Presto-chango, any formatting settings (face, bold, size, etc.) should now apply to all the text you selected. Neato.

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When I'm writing an e-mail or fiddling in TextEdit, I often copy in text from another location (Safari, another e-mail, etc.). Doing that,...
 

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Oliver Otway

I've finally sussed it.

The fundamental difference between the OS's (Well Windows & Mac, for all you picky *nix users)

Windows releases a product with good documentation, that gets new bugs on a weekly basis.

Mac OS releases a product with usually shocking documentation, in which you find new features and keyboard shortcuts on at least a weekly basis.

You See, it's all about self discovery :)

January 29 2006 at 10:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Fritz Laurel

Awesome! You just put years back on my life.

January 29 2006 at 5:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mike

Didn't know about the cmd-opt-shift-V. Plain Clip offers a plugin for Spark, which is what I use.

January 29 2006 at 4:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mayo

Almost every application that supports ritch text (even if they don't show it in the Edit menu) supports option-shift-command-v for pasting with your current style, or in other words "unformatted". No need for special copy, just remember to paste it the way you want it.

January 29 2006 at 1:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
vanou

Thanks for the tip! It's gonna be useful!

January 29 2006 at 12:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brad

This was a huge pet peeve of mine. Until I discovered Plain Clip ( http://www.bluem.net/downloads/plain-clip_en/ ), a donationware app that works perfectly and transparently to remove an formatting from text in the clipboard. I keep it in my dock and simply click it after copying text and before pasting. It looks like nothing happens, but it's done.
According to the website, "Plain Clip is a small Mac OS X application that removes formatting from text which is on the clipboard. It's designed as a faceless application (no GUI), which makes it ideal for triggering it from a hotkey and launcher applications such as Spark, iKey, LaunchBar, QuickSilver or Butler."
I love it and consider it one of my absolute necessities.

January 29 2006 at 12:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

Or you could just use:

Paste With Current Style

which is availble in the Edit Menu in most rich-text aware apps, TextEdit, etc.

January 29 2006 at 12:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Daniele Nicolucci

It would be nice if there was a way to copy WITHOUT style from those apps that copy with style by default (Safari, X-Chat Aqua and many others)...

January 29 2006 at 11:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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