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All the time I am editing emails or text documents and I copy and paste text from another source. This changes the the current text formatting styles to that of what was copied and it is always a big hassle for me to change back to the original style for formatting text that is immediately after the text I just copied.

Is there a standard convention of reverting back to the previous text format? I wind up most of the time copy pasting text from a region with the right formatting.

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Are you asking if this is normal practice, or are you asking if there is a way to copy formatting more easily? If it's the latter question, what email software are you using? – JNK Aug 6 '10 at 17:45
No is there a way to copy formatting a return to the normal text formatting. E.g. on gmail if I copy something from a webpage, how I can easily return to the normal text formatting for the email text. I was asking generally since it seems like it should be something pretty standard (like ctl + b for bold text) – Gordon Aug 6 '10 at 18:13
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If you select "paste special" (usually from the Edit menu), then you can select "text" or "plain text". That will drop the formatting from the pasted data, and retain your current formatting.

This works in almost all applications that support "paste special." For those that do not, paste into Notepad (which also drops the formatting), then copy from Notepad and paste into your application.

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I actually want to preserve the formatting of the text I am copying, but I would like a simple way to change back to the original formatting when I continue typing. – Gordon Aug 10 '10 at 7:02
In that case, before pasting, press the space bar, then press the left arrow to move back one space, then paste, then press the End key to jump over your space character (adding that space preserved your original formatting) – Tom Aug 10 '10 at 13:07
I will use that technique from now on, just such a ridculously common task for me it would be nice if there was some better way besides some cursor trickery. If I forget to do what you mention, my next best bet is to copy paste text from before the pasting. – Gordon Aug 11 '10 at 19:39
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