If you've ever copied text from a PDF, website, or Word file, you already know the chaos that follows — weird fonts, random colors, odd spacing, and broken alignment. Removing that formatting quickly and cleanly is basically a superpower for writers, developers, students, and anyone who deals with copy-paste all day. This guide breaks down the smartest and fastest ways to strip formatting without losing your sanity.

Why Formatting Gets Messed Up When You Copy Text

Most text you copy carries hidden HTML, CSS, or document styling. PDFs embed fonts. Websites load custom styles. Word documents carry invisible metadata. When you paste it into another editor, all that junk comes along for the ride. That’s why your clean document suddenly looks like a ransom note.

• Random fonts and colors appear
• Paragraph spacing explodes
• Bullets and numbering break
• Links and HTML tags sneak in
• Text alignment becomes inconsistent

The Easiest Way: Use an Online Text Cleaner

The simplest and cleanest method is using a dedicated text cleaning tool. These tools strip everything: fonts, colors, HTML tags, line breaks, and hidden styles. It’s the most reliable method, especially when dealing with messy PDFs or copied email threads.

Unlike manual methods, a formatter removes every unnecessary element while keeping your content readable. This is especially useful for editors, marketers, and developers who need clean, plain text fast.

How to Remove Formatting in Word

Method 1: Use 'Clear All Formatting'

1. Select the text.
2. Press Ctrl + Spacebar (Windows) or Cmd + Spacebar (Mac).
3. Or click the A with eraser icon in Word’s toolbar.

This removes fonts, bolding, color, and size — but keeps basic structure like paragraphs intact.

Method 2: Paste Without Formatting

• Use Ctrl + Shift + V instead of Ctrl + V (on many apps)
• Or use Paste → Keep Text Only option in Word

Pro tip: If 'Keep Text Only' isn’t showing, Word may be applying default styling. The formatter tool solves this cleanly.

How to Remove Formatting from PDFs

PDFs are notorious for messy formatting because they’re designed for display, not editing. When you copy from a PDF, you get line breaks in random places, broken paragraphs, and strange characters.

1. Copy the text from the PDF.
2. Paste it into a text cleaner tool.
3. Choose options to remove line breaks, tabs, or HTML characters.
4. Paste into your final document.

How to Remove Formatting When Copying from Websites

Websites often include hidden HTML, CSS styles, JavaScript tags, and tracking links. When copied, all of this sneaks into your document.

• Colorful fonts appear
• Random spacing shows up
• Links remain attached
• Hidden HTML breaks your layout

To avoid that:

1. Use Ctrl + Shift + V to paste without formatting.
2. Or run it through a text cleaner before copying into your editor.
3. Avoid copying entire styled blocks — copy only text portions.

How to Remove Formatting from Emails

Emails introduce some of the worst formatting — nested blockquotes, inline styles, invisible tables, and inconsistent fonts. Outlook and Gmail both add their own formatting layers.

Your best option is always to clean email text before pasting it elsewhere.

• Copy content
• Run it through text cleaner
• Paste into your document or app

How to Remove Formatting in Google Docs

1. Paste text using Ctrl + Shift + V.
2. Or select text → Format → Clear formatting.
3. Or paste into a text cleaner first.

Google Docs Shortcut:
Windows: Ctrl +  
Mac: Cmd + .

How Developers Remove Formatting from Copied Code

Copying code from blogs or PDFs often brings in invisible Unicode characters, broken indentation, and weird whitespace. This can break your app instantly.

• Smart quotes instead of normal quotes
• Invisible non-breaking spaces
• Broken indentation
• HTML entities ( , &, >)

Manual Methods to Strip Formatting (If You Like Suffering)

• Paste into Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit in plain-text mode (Mac)
• Use a plain-text editor like VS Code
• Paste into a scratchpad app with no styling

It works, but it’s slow and loses structure. Online tools are faster and preserve line breaks intelligently.

Final Thoughts: The Smart Way to Remove Formatting

The fastest, cleanest method to remove formatting is using a text-cleaning tool. It handles PDFs, emails, websites, Word files, and code without leaving behind hidden styles or broken HTML. Manual methods work, but they’re slow and inconsistent.