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I found that Format Painter shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V in Word 2019 is no longer working. As a predominantly keyboard shortcut user I found this incredibly frustrating and could not find any answers that worked. I finally found a solution that fixed it for me after being pointed in a certain direction from another post but was vague enough I had to figure it out on my own further. I thought I would post the below in the hope that it may help others to find the solution quicker, as a lot of the same question threads have been locked with out a satisfactory solution:
I found that Word had changed the Format Painter shortcuts:
CopyFormat: From Ctrl+Shift+C to Alt+Ctrl+C; and
PasteFormat: From Ctrl+Shift+V to Alt+Ctrl+V.
If, like me, you don't want to learn the new shortcuts and prefer the previous shortcuts, go to the menu File | Options | Customize Ribbon:
Select the 'Customize' button for Keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of the pop-up box.
Under the column Categories, select 'All Commands'.
(for the copy formatting shortcut)
In the right column select 'CopyFormat'.
Under 'Current keys' select the Alt+Ctrl+C and select 'Remove'.
Under 'Press new shortcut key' enter Ctrl+Shift+C
Select 'Normal' to Save changes in.
Select 'Assign'.
(for the paste formatting shortcut)
In the right column select 'PasteFormat'.
Under 'Current keys' select the Alt+Ctrl+V and select 'Remove'.
Under 'Press new shortcut key' enter Ctrl+Shift+V
Select 'Normal' to Save changes in.
Select 'Assign'.
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I too found the new shortcuts extremely frustrating, having been using shortcuts for decades. Now, to add to the frustration, even the Alt+Ctrl+C doesn't work. It opens some 'create a clip' in windows. Your solution is god-send. Thank you
My experience was that no you don't have to remove the current key assignment, you then just have two shortcuts that do the same thing. It did not automatically remove the command from the older one. I removed the key assignment anyway as I needed it it available to create a different shortcut.
You don't have to remove the current key assignment. Reassigning it to the desired command will automatically remove it from the older one.
this was dope!! i had struggled with this for decades!! XD thax a bunch, comrade!!
The changes made to the shortcuts for Copy Format and Paste Format were announced a while back for beta testers; see https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/paste-text-only-shortcut-in-word.
The changes still haven't been implemented on all systems. Personally, I got the "update" a few days ago.
The new shortcuts are documented in the following support article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-format-painter-4bb415a9-d4e4-42b7-b579-170adc594e40.
As discussed here, you can modify the shortcuts in Word.
True. A command may have more than one shortcut assigned to it.
However, I was referring to a different situation: if you assign a shortcut to command X and that shortcut is already being used with command Y, command Y will lose its shortcut.