How to remove all formatting from selected text in word 2013 documents

Clear or Remove Text Formatting in a Word Document

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated October 3, 2022 Applies to: Microsoft^®Word^® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 365 (Windows) You can use keyboard shortcuts or the Ribbon to clear formatting in a Word document. Since there are two types of text formatting (character and paragraph), you can choose to clear all formatting or just character or paragraph formatting. If you want to clear formatting for text where a specific style has been applied, you’ll need to select the text that uses the style first and then remove the formatting. In Word, when you apply formatting to selected text using commands in the Font or Paragraph group on the Home tab in the Ribbon, you are applying direct or manual formatting in addition to the style applied to the text (the Normal style by default). Note: Buttons and Ribbon tabs may display in a different way (with or without text) depending on your version of Word, the size of your screen and your Control Panel settings. For newer versions of Word, Ribbon tabs may appear with different names. Recommended article: 14 Microsoft Word Shortcuts to Quickly Select Text Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person classroom Word courses >

Clear formatting from selected text using keyboard shortcuts

To clear formatting from selected text using keyboard shortcuts:

Press Ctrl + Spacebar to clear character formatting only (such as bold, font and font size) from selected text.
Press Ctrl + Q to clear paragraph formatting only (such as indents and line spacing) from selected text.
Press Ctrl + Shift + N to reapply the Normal style to selected text.

If you want to select the entire document first, press Ctrl + A to select all and then you can use these shortcuts.

Clear formatting from selected text using the Ribbon

To clear formatting using the Clear Formatting command in the Ribbon:

Select the text with the formatting you want to remove.
Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
In the Font group, click Clear All Formatting. This will remove both character and paragraph formatting and return the text to the Normal style.

Clear All Formatting appears on the Home tab in the Ribbon in the Font group (as an A with an eraser): Clear All Formatting command in the Ribbon in Word.

Clear all formatting in a Word document

To clear all text formatting in a Word document:

Click in a paragraph in the document and press Ctrl + A to select all. This will select the text in the document but not text in headers, footers, text boxes, shapes or SmartArt.
Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
In the Font group, click Clear All Formatting.

Clear all formatting from paragraphs using the Normal style

You may not want to clear formatting from your entire document (for example, if you are using heading styles for headings). In this case, you could select all paragraphs using the Normal style and clear formatting. To select paragraphs using the Normal style and clear formatting:

Click in a paragraph using the Normal style.
Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
In the Styles gallery, right-click Normal. A drop-down menu appears.
Click Select All.
Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
In the Font group, click Clear All Formatting. This will remove both character and paragraph formatting and return the text to the Normal style. You can also press Ctrl + Shift + N.

The context menu appears when you right-click Normal in the Styles gallery: Context menu that appears when you right-click the Normal Style in the Styles gallery. You can also select other paragraphs using specific styles in the Styles gallery and reapply the style by clicking the style again in the gallery.

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More resources

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Last updated: January 16, 2017

Formatting and properly setting up a document in Word 2013 can be a bit of a hassle. It can get even worse if you’re in school or work for a company that has very specific rules about the way that a document needs to be formatted. So if you have used your own custom formatting, or if you have copied and pasted information from a website or another location, then you may end up with a lot of different formatting that is difficult to remove. One simple way to fix this is to take advantage of a tool in Word 2013 that automatically clears all of the formatting from your text, leaving you with just original, unaltered text. This article will teach you how to remove formatting in Word 2013. You will be able to remove formatting from the entire document, or from a selection of text within the document. Removing formatting in this manner will reset the font and the styling to the settings currently defined by the document’s template. Sign up for a free trial of Amazon Prime today and see if the benefits of two-day shipping and instant video streaming make it a worthwhile subscription for you to have. This is a good thing to do before you start entering your own formatting for a document, as it is going to strip all of the formatting that has been applied to the text. You will not have the option to select which settings to remove, and will simply be left with black text on a white background. You will, however, be able to select specific sections of text from which to strip the formatting, or you can select the entire document. Step 1: Open the document in Word 2013. Step 2: Click the Home tab at the top of the window. click the home tab

Step 3: Use your mouse to highlight the text for which you want to clear the formatting, or press Ctrl + A to select the entire document.

highlight the text for which you want to remove the formatting

Step 4: Click the Clear All Formatting button in the Font section of the ribbon at the top of the window.

Summary – How to clear formatting in Word 2013

Select the desired text, or press Ctrl + A to select the entire document.
Click the Home tab at the top of the window.
Click the Clear All Formatting button in the Font section of the ribbon.

Do you have a lot of important Word documents stored on your computer? Or do you have copies of pictures from an important event that would be difficult to replace? You might want to consider getting an external hard drive and saving copies of those files to that drive in case something every happens to your computer. Find out how to easily create page numbers in Word 2013. Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times. After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites. His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.

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