small changes, big differences
Of course, it’s not a big change like Microsoft’s official acceptance of Windows 11 on Apple Silicon Macs. However, the effect actually felt by users is very important. Sometimes small improvements result in huge conveniences, and this time is a prime example. Especially if you’ve ever pasted unformatted text from Word on Mac or Windows, you’ll be delighted with this improvement.
Every student, researcher and knowledge worker has had this experience. I copied it from another document and pasted it into the document I’m currently working on, but all the formatting like font and text settings follows. In this situation, you can remove all formatting by pressing the A/Clear Formatting button, but if you don’t know this function, you will have to change everything manually, such as font, size, color and spacing of the characters. lines. If you forego replacing, the final finished document will be a jumble of different styles.
Another way to avoid this hassle is to control-click while pasting. In the context menu that appears, click Paste Special > Unformatted Text.
not a feature
However, for most users, this approach is unintuitive and inconsistent. On the contrary, it hampers productivity. It makes much more sense to just paste the unformatted text without any extra work. Now, when this function is officially released, this problem will disappear. The only thing to remember is the shortcut key. Command-Shift-V on Mac, Control-Shift-V on Windows. In Teams and Word for the web, these shortcuts have already been applied.
Once in Microsoft Word clippyThere was a useless support feature called This little mascot that was known (?) to reduce productivity. Word currently doesn’t have Clippy, but copy-paste operations have been criticized for being reminiscent of Clippy.
So why did it take so long to put an unformatted paste shortcut? Microsoft via blog explained like thisdid.
“Word is 40 years old software since its first release in 1983. This long heritage of development has created the kind of practices that users have come to expect from Word. Our team of engineers uses the latest technologies to constantly create new features that improve the user “We develop, but it is not always possible to correct established practices. Keyboard shortcuts started with the initial setup of Word and are now established as industry standards.”
Some will think that’s an excuse. Indeed, despite the enormous market share of Word, one can interpret that Microsoft has not been able to create its own way of using the software. Diarrhea 1988 Copyright litigation with AppleEven if it’s the result of whatever the real reason, Microsoft at least stepped in to fix it.
And once you try this new feature, we are sure users all over the world will applaud you. Personally, it’s a welcome change as much as Mac’s “Undo Mail Forwarding” feature and Outlook for Mac’s free distribution. Besides that, there are several other changes in the new version. For example, some shortcuts are changed.
paste as text
- Windows: Ctrl-Shift-V
- Mac: Cmd-Shift-V
Copy Size
- Windows: Ctrl-Alt-C
- Mac: Cmd-Option-C
Paste formatting
- Windows: Ctrl-Alt-V
- Mac: Cmd-Option-V
select and paste
- Windows: Alt-HVS
- Mac: No (?!)
Copyright
- Windows: ( -C- ) or Insert>Symbol-©
- Mac: ( + C + ) or Insert > Symbol Ω > ©
According to Microsoft, users can revert these shortcut settings to their original state. The new shortcuts work in Word for Mac version 16.67.1113.0 or later. For Windows, this is version 16.0.15831.20174 or later. I’m going to test this shortcut for a while and then stick it to the default setting.
The implications of this improvement are clear. It is true that impairing the user experience in even minor frequently used tasks can have huge negative consequences on productivity. There is no excuse for poor software design. Microsoft should have created new shortcuts more than 10 years ago.
editor@itworld.co.kr
