How to remove formatting from Text in Word (2024)

If you regularly use Microsoft Word, you have probably struggled with formatting issues, particularly when working with documents created or edited by multiple people.

Sometimes, these formatting issues can be really time-consuming to fix, leaving you frustrated and unproductive. Luckily, removing formatting in a Word document is a pretty easy and straightforward task. There are two ways to do it: using keyboard shortcuts and/or the “Clear Formatting” command.

Keyboard Shortcut for Removing Formatting from Text in Word.

To remove formatting from the content, choose the text you wish to format. To select all the text, press “CTRL+A” on Windows and “COMMAND+A” on a Mac.

  • To remove character-level formatting, such as font styles, bold/italic text, and font sizes, from the selected text while retaining paragraph-level formatting like indents and line spacing, press CTRL+SPACE .
  • To preserve character-level formatting while reverting paragraph-level formatting to the default style of the current document, press CTRL+Q.
  • To reset the selected text to normal formatting for both character-level and paragraph-level formatting, press CTRL+SHIFT+N.

These keyboard shortcuts save you time and easily resolve formatting problems in your Word documents.

Removing formatting using the Clear Formatting command.

To remove formatting using the ‘Clear Formatting’ command, follow these steps:

  1. Select the text from which you want to remove the formatting.
  2. Click on the “Home” tab at the top of the screen.
  3. Click on the “Clear Formatting” button, which looks like an eraser
    Click on the "Clear Formatting" button, which looks like an eraser
    Click on the “Clear Formatting” button, which looks like an eraser

This will remove all formatting from the selected text, including font styles, colors, sizes, bold text, italic text, and underlining.

In conclusion, these keyboard shortcuts and commands can be game changers when it comes to formatting documents in Microsoft Word. Using them can save you time and help you create a more polished and professional looking document.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Muhammad Zubyan


Muhammad Zubyan is a certified Google IT Support Professional with over 7 years of extensive experience. He has worked on more than 1500 computers, gaining valuable insights that enable him to detect and troubleshoot any complicated root cause of Windows-related issues and errors. In addition to managing Appuals as a Senior Editor, he is currently developing his own Game Optimization program that caters to both gamers and casual users alike.