Microsoft Edge changes the way you copy then paste web links into Word, Outlook or anywhere else. It’s messed up so we’ll explain what’s changed and how go back to the familiar copy/paste feature.
Copying a web page link is easy and available ever since browsers started. Select the web link in the browser and choose Ctrl + C to copy to the clipboard.
Switch to another program (Word, Outlook or whatever) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the link.
In all browsers the web link (URL) is pasted like this https://office-watch.com
But the Edge default setting pastes the page title and link combined like this Office Watch independent help for Microsoft Office which might be OK for some situations but an annoyance in many others. It’s certainly unexpected.
The changed link paste might make sense to Microsoft but doesn’t work out here the real world. Rarely do people want to use the ‘official’ web page title when pasting. It’s more common to use shorter or different text like “this is my favorite site for MS Office help” or “Try Office Watch – they have good info”.
This part of Edge seems to us as Microsoft trying to be way too clever. The changed paste option is done by default, confusing users and the dialog is obscure.
Default setting
The Edge settings for pasting content is at edge://settings/shareCopyPaste or Settings | Share, copy and paste. The default setting is the left-hand box labelled ‘Link’.
What does Microsoft mean by ‘Link and ‘Plain text’ in this context? It’s not clear from the dialog what either are (what are the grey and color bars meant to show anyway?). ‘Link’ does NOT mean URL (i.e. https:\\…). ‘Plain text’ could refer to the URL or the page title – but which?
Link – Ctrl + V – pastes the combined web page title with underlying web link/URL
Plain text – Ctrl + Shift + V – is supposed to paste the web link only
Your pasting milage will vary
The behavior of ‘Ctrl + Shift + V’ is screwy, at least on our test machines. The pasted content depends on the destination application, if it works at all.
Sometimes that shortcut pastes in the page title, in other apps the same clipboard content pastes the web link only and on other occasions (amazingly Word 365) nothing is pasted at all!
Microsoft uses a bit of double-talk to excuse themselves for this mess.
“ Some paste destinations don’t support all paste options, in which case the destination will paste what is supported. Learn more”
Which isn’t true since our tests show that sometimes nothing is pasted even though the destination supports both paste options.
In other words, “Your Microsoft Milage may vary”.
Restore the familiar web link paste feature
To get the old way of pasting (i.e. paste the web link/URL) click on ‘Plain text’ at right.
Selecting ‘Plain text’ at right means that a Paste command (Ctrl + V) will paste the visible web link/URL. The old and familiar behavior.
Right-click Paste in Edge
If you’re pasting a web link within Edge (say to a text box on another web page) there’s a right-click Paste option in Edge to choose pasting either way.
Right-click and choose Paste As …
What appears depends on the type of text box you’re typing into – plain text or rich text (the latter can handle clickable web links). And which Edge Paste option you’ve chosen.
Too clever by half
We suggest changing this setting to Plain text which is the familiar way that browsers have worked for years. The new Edge option, is presumably well intentioned but has been poorly thought through, inconsistently applied and, just to make things worse, badly documented.
In other words, Microsoft has tried to be too clever by half.
Office apps forced into Edge browser
Add a mini-Outlook in the Edge browser
