Microsoft finally gave Word the Ctrl+Shift+V shortcut for pasting plain text. It is a change that millions of people wanted, but it came at a cost: several long standing keyboard shortcuts had to move or disappear entirely, and the rollout created a mess in Outlook that took months to fix. OneNote now has the Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V shortcut, more a year later. This guide looks at what happened, where we stand now and what’s left to be done.
Microsoft’s execution of Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V to Paste Text Only has been messy and still isn’t complete. The change itself was overdue and welcome, but the domino effect on other shortcuts, the inconsistency across Office apps, and the months long Outlook breakage all point to a company where the left hand does not always know (or care) what the right hand is doing.
OneNote now has Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V
We’re obliged to Will Fastie at AskWoody for pointing out that Ctrl + Shift + V has appeared without notice in OneNote for Windows. We can confirm that OneNote for Mac now has Cmd + Shift + V to paste text only.
That’s about 18 months after the shortcut was added to Microsoft Word. That’s sluggish even by Microsoft standards.
The OneNote ‘catch up’ is the reason why we’ll review what changed, which apps got the shortcut, the clumsy rollout and what it means for you.
What Ctrl+Shift+V Does Now
In Word for Windows and Word for Mac, pressing Ctrl+Shift+V (or Cmd+Shift+V on Mac) now pastes text without any formatting. Microsoft calls this “Keep Text Only” or “Paste Text Only.”
You copy something from a website, a PDF, or another document. Instead of bringing along the original fonts, colors, sizes, and background styling, the pasted text takes on whatever formatting is already in your Word document at the insertion point. Clean, simple, and exactly what most people want most of the time.
However “Paste Text Only” will also remove any hyperlinks.
This shortcut already worked that way in Google Docs, Gmail, Chrome, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. Word was the holdout, and people complained about it for years. Microsoft finally listened.
For a deep dive into all the paste options in Word, see All your Paste choices in Microsoft Word.
What Changed in 2025 (and Late 2024)
The Paste Text Only shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V (or Cmd+Shift+V on Mac) started rolling out to Microsoft 365 Insiders in mid 2024 and reached most Microsoft 365 subscribers by early 2025.
Office 2024 (the one-time purchase version) shipped with the same change already in place. There’s no change to Office 2021 and earlier versions.
But making room for the new shortcut meant reshuffling several other shortcuts that had been in Word for decades.
For the complete table of changed shortcuts and command names you need to reassign them, see Paste Text Only Shortcut in Word: Benefits and Changes.
The biggest casualties are the Format Painter shortcuts. If you relied on Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V to copy and paste formatting (bold, italic, font changes) between paragraphs, those shortcuts are gone. The replacements use Ctrl+Alt instead of Ctrl+Shift.
Paste Special lost its direct shortcut entirely on Windows and now requires a four key ribbon sequence (Alt, H, V, S). On Mac, there is no replacement shortcut at all, meaning you must use the ribbon, right click menu or Alt, H, V will get you to the Paste Menu.
The Copyright symbol © also lost its Ctrl+Alt+C shortcut, but most people type (c) and let AutoCorrect handle it, so this one is less painful.
The Outlook Disaster
Here is where things went sideways.
Outlook classic
Outlook classic (the desktop version most people still use) relies on Word as its email editor. When the Word team changed the shortcuts, those changes flowed through to Outlook.
The problem? Nobody on the Outlook team seemed to be ready for it. Starting in early 2025, users on the Current Channel found that the Ctrl+Alt+V Paste Special shortcut stopped working in Outlook classic after updating to Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156).
For the full story on the Outlook breakage, see Ctrl+Shift+V paste shortcut returns to Outlook. It took more than four months of a broken paste shortcut in the app where people arguably paste formatted text most often.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue and traced it directly to the Word shortcut changes. But the fix did not arrive quickly. It rolled out to the Beta Channel in May 2025, Current Channel Preview in early June, and finally reached the regular Current Channel in late June 2025.
New Outlook
New Outlook (the web based replacement Microsoft is pushing) does support Ctrl+Shift+V for plain text pasting, though it has its own separate set of paste limitations.
Which Office Apps Support Ctrl+Shift+V?
This is where it gets frustrating. The shortcut is not consistent across all Microsoft 365 apps:
Ctrl+Shift+V works for Paste Text Only in:
- Word for Windows
- Word for Mac
- Word for the web
- Microsoft Teams
- OneNote (Windows and Mac) – a very recent change.
- Outlook (classic) for Windows, since the mid-2025 fix.
- Outlook (new) for Windows
Ctrl+Shift+V does NOT paste plain text in:
- Excel (the shortcut does nothing or has no effect)
- PowerPoint (still uses Ctrl+Shift+V for Paste Format Painter, the old behavior)
Excel and PowerPoint workaround
For Excel and PowerPoint, the workaround is the ribbon keytip sequence Alt, H, V, T which selects “Keep Text Only” from the paste options. Press each key in sequence (not all at once) and it works reliably. It is one extra keystroke, but you do not have to hold multiple keys simultaneously.
Excel has its own version of Ctrl+Shift+V that works differently, see New Paste Values keyboard shortcut for Excel. For more on ribbon keytip sequences across all Office apps, see Unleash the Power of Keytip Shortcuts in Microsoft Office.
How Does It Work on Mac?
On Mac, the equivalent shortcut is Cmd+Shift+V and it works in Word 365/2024 for Mac.
The Format Painter shortcuts moved to Cmd+Option+C (copy formatting) and Cmd+Option+V (paste formatting), mirroring the Windows changes.
One notable gap: Paste Special has no keyboard shortcut at all on Mac after this change. The old Ctrl+Alt+V (which was Cmd+Option+V on Mac) now triggers Paste Format Painter instead. Mac users must go through the ribbon or right click to reach the Paste Special dialog. That is a real downgrade for anyone who regularly pastes content in specific formats.
Does This Work in Office 2024?
Yes. Office 2024 (the one time purchase, non subscription version) shipped with the same changed shortcuts. So Ctrl+Shift+V pastes plain text in Word 2024, and the Format Painter shortcuts have moved to Ctrl+Alt+C / Ctrl+Alt+V just like in Microsoft 365.
However, Office 2024 does not receive ongoing feature updates the way Microsoft 365 does. So while it has the new shortcuts, it will not get any further refinements or fixes that Microsoft rolls out later.
Older perpetual versions like Office 2021 and earlier do not have this change. In those versions, Ctrl+Shift+V still triggers the Format Painter paste (if you previously copied formatting with Ctrl+Shift+C), and there is no built in plain text paste shortcut.
For the full comparison of what you get in the one time purchase version versus the subscription, see Office 2024 for Windows and Mac: Features, Pricing and Everything You Need to Know.
How to Get Your Old Shortcuts Back
If you preferred the old Format Painter shortcuts and do not want Ctrl+Shift+V for plain text paste, you can reassign them in Word:
- Go to File | Options | Customize Ribbon
- Click the Customize button next to “Keyboard shortcuts” (bottom left)
- Set Categories to All Commands
- Find CopyFormat and assign it back to Ctrl+Shift+C
- Find PasteFormat and assign it back to Ctrl+Shift+V
- Find PasteTextOnly and either remove its shortcut or assign it to something else
This only works in Word (and by extension, Outlook classic). PowerPoint does not have customizable keyboard shortcuts without third party add ins.
Ctrl+Shift+V Paste Shortcut Returns to Outlook
Paste Text Only Shortcut in Word: Benefits and Changes
All Your Paste Choices in Microsoft Word
New Paste Values Keyboard Shortcut for Excel
How Word Pastes Into Your Document
Word Keyboard Shortcuts: Add, Change or Remove
Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts Essential for Quick Navigation
Explaining and Disabling Edge’s Confusing New URL Copy & Paste Feature
