Copy text without formatting

I sometimes quote websites and do a normal copy paste job to copy the website content to the editor of my blog or into a word processor. Unfortunately this copy job always pastes the original formatting of the original source to the editor as well which means that the text may have a different size, font type or color. It is quite a hassle to remove the formatting of the copied contents to make it look like the rest of your content.

Puretext is a freeware utility that helps you in this special case. It adds a new windows hot key to your system (Windows + V) which removes all the formatting of the text that is pasted into your editor. You have some options in puretext like changing the hotkey to Shift + V or ALT + V instead of the default one. You are free to change the key that needs to be pressed as well, making it highly flexible.

Another option if selected pastes the converted text automatically into the active window when you press the hotkey. If you do not enable this the text is stripped of the formatting but not pasted into the editor. You are free to play a sound when this is done but I would advise against it. You may also auto run puretext with every windows start by enabling that option in puretext.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday September 5, 2006 -
Tags:copy, copy text, editor, formatting, plain text

Responses so far:

1. gnome says:

   September 5, 2006 at 6:41 pm

   A must-use blogging tool. Thanks. Once again.

   Reply
2. kornie says:

   September 5, 2006 at 10:53 pm

   i just copy-paste to notepad, then copy again…

   a bit longer but works…

   Reply
3. Peter Huesken says:

   September 6, 2006 at 9:45 am

   i just copy-paste to a field that doesn´t support formatting, then copy again…

   a little bit longer but works…

   Reply
4. gnome says:

   September 6, 2006 at 11:21 am

   Yes, but think of all the wasted seconds….

   Reply
5. Olsen says:

   September 7, 2006 at 1:18 pm

   Great.. This utill will actually get usefull.. I do a lot of copy and Special Paste to get rid of formating – so this little snippet seems perfect :)

   Reply