One Paste And Match Style to Rule Them All

It seems like every program has a different keyboard shortcut for Paste and Match Style or they have the option to use it, but no shortcut is assigned by default. Some apps don’t even have the option to paste and match style. It becomes very frustrating.

I decided to whip up this quick AppleScript that reads in your clipboard contents, strips out the formatting and pastes the resulting text to your cursor location.

I saved this AppleScript to a permanent location and assigned it a Global Keyboard Shortcut with Alfred. I chose the shortcut:

^ + ⌘ + V

I haven’t tested it in every program but it worked fine stripping the formatting from Safari content and pasting it in to OmniFocus as well as all my text editors.

Download it here: PasteAndMatchStyle

Code as usual:

  • channui

    You can probably shorten your shell script bit to “pbpaste | pbcopy”.  Currently you’re leaving a file in your tmp directory every time you use this.

    I think it’s a good idea, if you’re using Keyboard Maestro just create a macro that executes “Filter Clipboard: Remove Styles” and “Paste”.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the tips!

  • Scott Palmer

    Inspired, and inspiring! I have always wanted something like this. After seeing your post, I popped open TextExpander, selected a plain text snippet and inserted only the contents of the clipboard placeholder. Works as described above, automagically. Thanks for the whack on the side of the head!

  • http://www.twitter.com/binaryghost Don Southard

    Great idea using it with TextExpander! I love that app :)

  • Robert Rackley

    All I can say is, thank you sir!  I was wasting so much time pasting stuff into Outlook and having to change the formatting.

  • binaryghost

    No, thank you sir for checking out my site :)

    - Don S.

  • Lp0_0

    Hello Dan, This download didn’t work for me. How do I remove the script please? Thank you.

  • binaryghost

    The download worked ok for me. What do you mean you need to remove the script?

    - Don

  • Nolan

    Thank you!  Easily installed and just what I was looking for!

  • Mrbbui

    i tried installing this and it doesnt seem to work for me. it freezes my mac can you help please? ty!

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