Clear Formatting

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Level 1

5 points

Clear Formatting

Hey All,

I think what SkyJet posted (a few years ago) is the same exact issue that I have as well. He's NOT really l looking to search and replace, he wants to know if there is a way to "clear formatting" when you paste text unto the body.

I enjoy making a directory of recipes from those I have come across on the net. If I were to just copy the text and paste unto the page (even match formatting), there would be a lot of extra lines between the sentences. The text will keep the formatting from the online page of where it was copied. Yes, I LOVED MS Word. I got to know all it's ins and outs to use it effortlessly. Since I upgraded to Catalina, MS Word (and any other MS Office programs) suddenly will not work. It almost feels that MS worked out a deal with Apple. Anyone that is still using Sierra or Mojave have no problems it seems. However, if you don't have a subscription to MS Office, then you're SOL.

Ok, enough of that rant. If anyone can answer this question without talking about "search & replace", I would greatly appreciate it.

Cheers

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 22, 2020 12:07 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Feb 22, 2020 2:21 AM in response to DJBearOH

Hi DJB,

Copy the text as usual, then paste using Edit > Paste and Match Style. This will adopt the format set for the space into which it is pasted. Some applications label this meu choice "Paste plain text," but the effect is the same.

Regarding your MS comment, my understanding s that MS Office Mac 2011 will not work in Catalina, but the newer MS Office Mac 2016 will. The 2011 version is 32bit, 2016 is 64bit. Catalina accepts only 64bit applications.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,218 points

Feb 22, 2020 8:33 AM in response to DJBearOH

MS Word understands HTML and CSS content pasted from the web as it was designed to also export HTML. Pages '06 and later, including Pages v8.2.1, were not designed to translate, or export HTML/CSS format when pasted from websites.

If you want even a fighting chance of interpreting that web content and getting it converted into RTF format, then first paste the content into TextEdit (which does to an extent, understand HTML/CSS formatting), and then copy/paste that RTF content onwards into Pages. Different browsers place the same web content on the Apple clipboard as different kinds of clipboard data, and Pages was not designed to use some of these formats in the paste, or paste and match style operations.

The only Office Suite applications that Microsoft currently supports on Catalina are Office 365 subscriptions, and the single purchase, Office 2019 for Mac. Not Apple's fault that Microsoft retired Office 2011 for Mac in Oct 2017 without further support, and at that time, even required Office 2016 suites (64-bit) for High Sierra.

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Clear Formatting

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