Paste without the mess
Take words off a web page without dragging its blue underlines and gray background into your letter.
Copy a paragraph from a web page and paste it into a letter, and it arrives wearing everything it had on: blue underlined words, a different size, sometimes a gray background that will not go away. Nothing is broken. The words brought their appearance along with them.
Key points
- Say why a paste from a web page arrives blue and underlined.
- Paste words on their own, without the page’s colors coming too.
- Find the plain-text paste in a program you have not used before.
What to remember
- Look for Paste options, or the little clipboard that appears the moment you paste. The plain option is nearly always the one you want.
- Words and their appearance travel together. Paste as plain text is the button that separates them.
Try this
Find something on a web page worth keeping — a recipe, a set of opening times. Choose it, press Ctrl and C, open a blank page, and try both kinds of paste one after the other. The difference is plain to see.
Practice: Paste without the mess. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.