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I am copying text into a Word document that has its styles protected. Some of the text has a Character style applied to it that I would like to remove. I can change the style and it looks okay visually, but when you click inside the text itself you can see in the style menu that the Character style is still applied. I try to change the style using the style drop down but the Character style won't go away even if I change it to the Paragraph style.

Does anyone know what I am talking about and/or have any techniques for removing Character styles?

I am looking forward to your responses. Let me know if I need to clarify.

Thanks!

UPDATE: My issue is that the Paragraph style is changing correctly, but the Character style remains applied even though the text is displayed as if the style is not applied. See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA011876141033.aspx if you are not sure what I meen by Character styles.

There are four types of styles — paragraph, character, list, and table (list and table styles are new as of Word 2002). However, the majority of styles you'll use are paragraph styles.

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  • You should mark John Horner's answer below as the answer, as CTRL-SPACE works perfectly in Word 2003 (Win) to remove character styles. Mar 7, 2015 at 15:30

2 Answers 2

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This has been here for a long time and remained unanswered.

I just found the answer to this myself: select the text then use control-spacebar. The character style will disappear and only the default character settings for the underlying style will remain.

Tested only on Word 2011/Mac and I found the answer here: http://www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=46312

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  • Thank you, this works in Word 2003 (Win)! This post came up first when I googled "word 2003 remove character style". :) Mar 7, 2015 at 15:27
  • I can confirm this also works in Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2207)
    – Tai Paul
    Sep 22, 2022 at 4:35
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Click Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text

Or

Use PureText, which lets you paste without formatting by using Win+v.

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  • Thanks for the idea. Unfortunately 99% of the text is formatted correctly, so this would create a lot of extra work reformatting all of the headings, lists, etc. I would like a way to somehow just have these hidden styles removed. It is an interesting problem. The style remains but the text is formatted as if it does not have a Character style applied to it.
    – joe
    Jan 18, 2010 at 17:34
  • @joe: so what are you trying to remove? fonts or paragraph styles? It's rather unclear what you want left in and what not.
    – harrymc
    Jan 18, 2010 at 17:47
  • I am trying to remove Character styles. If you are unclear of what a Character style is please see: office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA011876141033.aspx
    – joe
    Jan 18, 2010 at 19:24

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