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John Stanowski
John Stanowski
Inspiring
March 27, 2012
Question

Ability to paste text "content" and not formatting

  • March 27, 2012
  • 16 replies
  • 29080 views

I'd like to be able to copy text and paste it over other text without pasting the formatting.

E.g. I have 2 point text objects, both have different appearances.

If I highlight the text from the first and paste it over the second, the appearance gets pasted as well.

I'd like to be able to keep the second object's appearance intact.

Hate to bring up Corel DRAW again, but Corel lets you do what I'm asking for.

Seems to me if you want to copy some text and include its appearance then you'd just duplicate the whole object.

But if I use the Text Tool and highlight the text and then copy, it does the same exact thing.

Knowhattamean?

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      16 replies

      Kurt Gold
      Community Expert
      Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      June 4, 2021

      Dmytro,

       

      your screenshot shows a Photoshop menu.

       

        F
        fordl44151010
        Participant
        September 4, 2020

        How is this still not done????!!!

          Monika Gause
          Community Expert
          Monika GauseCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          September 4, 2020

          Did you or anyone post it in Uservoice?

          Because that's where the developers read and discuss.

          virodesign
          virodesign
          Participant
          January 30, 2020

          We're in 2020 and I can't enough surprise for lack of these kinds of basic features nowadays in Illustrator compare with other design software. The subscription prices are not worthy 

            rcraighead
            rcraighead
            Legend
            October 24, 2019

            I first paste it into the "Attributes Panel" notes field and re-copy. I agree, there should be a simple option to "paste without formatting".

             

            N
            needforname
            Known Participant
            October 24, 2019

            It's mind boggling that Adobe continues to not provide this option. It would be as simple as offering a "paste and match style" option. Another obvious feature would be to "apply paragraph styliing to all other paragraphs". I guess that's asking too much. Adobe apparently doesn't care what their customers want or need, since they know they have a monopoly on the industry. If they did care, they'd fix decade long bugs and oversights. For example, the inability to hide text (what use to be cmd H) without having to disable the GPU processing setting. Laughably, that was the "solution" by Adobe reps when dozens of people asked why they could no longer hide selected type for easier editing. Even though disabling the GPU setting causes numerous other disadvantages. I can't wait until there is a true Adobe alternative for professional designers. Eventually there will be and Adobe will wonder why thousands of their customers jump ship. 

            S
            SJRiegel
            Legend
            October 24, 2019

            >>apply paragraph styliing to all other paragraphs

             

            This can be easily accomplished by setting up Paragraph Styles and Character Styles.  

             

            Still, I really, really want the Paste without Formatting option; there are times when it would be a huge timessaver.

            N
            needforname
            Known Participant
            October 24, 2019

            Yes, but that still requires setting the formatting up. Why not just have a simple setting option to apply which allows formatting to be applied or not applied. Much simpler. It seems like a no brainer for any design app in my opinion. I'm sure Adobe's reasoning is something along the lines of Illustrator not being a type program or something odd. Yet I wouldn't find InDesign being a better program for a label design creation. Anyway, thanks for your input. 

            C
            Celestial_image1549
            Participant
            February 3, 2016

            For clearing the styling you can go one step faster than using the text editor.

            In Illustrator, you can use the Search input from the application bar, for example. Or if you're on a Mac, you can use Spotlight's search input.

            Here's the technique explained for Photoshop. It works the same for Illustrator, only you can't use the Font drop-down, but instead the options I mentioned above.

            Photoshop productivity hack: Paste and Match Style alternative — Futurice

            It's a small improvement, but it makes a difference to your flow over time.

            N
            needforname
            Known Participant
            October 24, 2019

            I saw the copy and paste option elsewhere, but apparently it has a character limit and doesn't work for paragraphs of text longer than just 2565 characters. It's a shame that Adobe doesn't listen to it's customers. 

            S
            Syllogism
            Participant
            September 23, 2015

            If you are on PC you can use a freeware utility called Ditto. If also had the added benefit of keeping multiple items in your clipboard.

            alexgsrubio
            alexgsrubio
            Participant
            June 19, 2015

            Since the Ai team and the InD team does not talk to each other, i have used for quite some time a simple utility in MacOs, which I added to the startup items. It is a little app called JumpCut (Jumpcut: Minimalist Clipboard Buffering for OS X) This allow you to copy any text, up to 15 segments of file and store them for further use. This text has no styles, so it will paste with whatever style you have in any program: from Adobe to Microsoft or any other.

            Hope this helps

            jodif2015
            jodif2015
            Participant
            March 11, 2015

            So, 3 years later...has this been implemented?    I could use it!

            Qwertyfly___
            Qwertyfly___
            Legend
            March 13, 2015

            I'm sure a script would be simple to write that adds the selected text to the clipboard without formatting but to activate it with a shortcut is the issue.

            J
            JumpingPeppers
            Participant
            October 23, 2014

            Why hasn't this been implemented yet?


            Meanwhile a quicker workaround than using notepad is to just paste the content of your clipboard into spotlight and then Cmd-A and Copy it again. Not ideal but it takes me literally 2 seconds. I'm sure you can do the same by pasting into the run field in Windows.

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