Cutting and pasting
If you copy text from one document to another using the normal 'cut and paste' function (Ctrl c and Ctrl v), this can bring formatting into the new document and create problems with the styles. To avoid this happening:
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Place your cursor where you want the text to appear, and use 'Ctrl v' to paste the text into your document.
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Before you do anything else, look for the little clipboard icon that has appeared at the end of the text you've pasted (this will disappear as soon as you type anything else).
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Hover your cursor over the clipboard to make an arrow appear on the right of the icon. Click the arrow and select 'Keep text only'.
If you do a lot of cutting and pasting, you can set this as the default option so you don't have to do it manually every time. Open Word, click on the File tab, then choose 'Options'>'Advanced'. In the pop-up window set the 'Cut, copy and paste' options as follows:
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Pasting between documents: Keep text only.
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Pasting from other programs: Keep text only.
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Check the 'Keep bullets and numbers' box.
The text you paste in will normally show up in the style of any surrounding text, but can be reformatted if necessary as described in How to apply styles.
Cutting and pasting text containing tracked changes
If you want to retain the tracked changes in text that you are cutting and pasting, make sure that 'Track changes' is switched off in the document you are cutting from, and (if it is a separate document) the one you are pasting into. If you need a record of the move, use comments to mark where you cut text from, and where you added it.