Choose PlainPaste (or whatever you named the macro) in the right pane, click in the 'Press new shortcut key' box, type Ctrl-t (or the unused key combination of your choice, beginning with Ctrl, Alt, and/or Shift), select Assign and then Close twice. Scroll down the Categories list in the top left and select Macros. Next, assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro: In Word 2003, click Tools*Customize*Commands, make sure Normal.dot is selected in the 'Save in' drop-down menu, and click the Keyboard button. Only the text should appear, in the format of the document, not of the source. Now test the macro: Select a mix of text and other elements in your browser or some other application, press Ctrl-c to place it on the clipboard, return to Word, click Tools*Macro*Macros in Word 2003, or View*Macros in Word 2007, select PlainPaste in the list of Macros, and click Run. Type this text in the penultimate line of your macro to paste plain text. Press Ctrl-s to save the macro, and click File*Close and Return to Microsoft Word. The only space in the line is between 'PasteSpecial' and 'Datatype:'. Place the cursor at the beginning of the line just above 'End Sub' and type Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText. In both versions, type PlainPaste in the Macro name field (you can name it anything you like, but the name must begin with a letter, have no spaces, and use no punctuation), and choose Create. Paste plain text in Word via the keyboard my thanks to the reader below for pointing out this error.) If both the source and destination programs are open when you initially copy the text, you need only press PureText's shortcut key to paste the text without images, formatting, and other non-text elements. This is true only if you open the destination app after the material you want to paste has been added to the clipboard.

(Note that the original post of this tip reported that PureText required that you click its icon in your system tray before you press the shortcut keys to paste plain text.

You can create a macro to get the same functionality in Word and Excel, without having to download anything.

Last week I described the PureText utility that lets you paste plain text in Word and other applications via a keyboard shortcut.

Set excel shortcut keys