Copy/Pasting between documents refuses to change formatting?

[JAnderson]

Greetings,

I feel like I have a lot of experience with Word, but this has always eluded
me and I don't even know how to name the problem.

When I copy from one document and paste into another, sometimes the act of
pasting will cause the pasted text (or merge fields) to assume a formatting
different from BOTH documents. Most times I will get the option to "keep
source formatting", but sometimes this does not appear, and no amount of
"clear formatting" and changing the formatting will get back to the original
version. For example:

I paste a paragraph into my existing document. My document is formatted in
Times New Roman 12, single spaced. When I paste, I get the formatting of
Calibri 11 with what looks like 1.5 spacing. I check the spacing, and it
says 1.0, though there are noticeable spaces between the lines. No amount of
subsequent formatting will get me back to where I started out in my original
document. I cannot select "Paste unformatted text" because that will
eliminate any merge fields that I was pasting.

Does anyone have any idea why Word sometimes refuses to accept formatting?

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Greetings,

I feel like I have a lot of experience with Word, but this has always eluded
me and I don't even know how to name the problem.

When I copy from one document and paste into another, sometimes the act of
pasting will cause the pasted text (or merge fields) to assume a formatting
different from BOTH documents. Most times I will get the option to "keep
source formatting", but sometimes this does not appear, and no amount of
"clear formatting" and changing the formatting will get back to the original
version. For example:

I paste a paragraph into my existing document. My document is formatted in
Times New Roman 12, single spaced. When I paste, I get the formatting of
Calibri 11 with what looks like 1.5 spacing. I check the spacing, and it
says 1.0, though there are noticeable spaces between the lines. No amount of

This is because Calibri has more leading than Times New Roman, so single
space looks like there is space, but there isn't.

subsequent formatting will get me back to where I started out in my original
document. I cannot select "Paste unformatted text" because that will
eliminate any merge fields that I was pasting.

Does anyone have any idea why Word sometimes refuses to accept formatting?

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "Word sometimes refuses to
accept formatting." I have never seen Word "refuse" to apply a font setting
or paragraph setting that I was trying to apply to a bit of text...

Looks like you are using Word 2007. Always mention the Word version, it
might have an impact on either understanding a problem or offering a
solution, or both...

Now, in your case, it looks as though you are pasting in a document where
manual formatting was applied (Times New Roman 12), but the underlying Normal
style was not changed (Calibri 11).

If this is the way you work, then chances are you picked up a paragraph that
had manual fromatting applied on top of the Normal style. When you pasted
Word applied the local Normal style to the pasted text becasue it is flagged
as being formatted with the Normal style.

If you use style, then you should have less undesirable effect when psting.

I do not understand what you mean by :
"I cannot select "Paste unformatted text" because that will eliminate any
merge fields".
Formatting has no impact on field codes...

But overall, the trick is to use styles.