Microsoft Word bug when pasting after Ctrl B

Question

In Notepad I select the word hello and copy it to the clipboard.

Then I switch to Microsoft Word and alternate between pressing Control B and Control V:

Ctrl B Ctrl V Ctrl B Ctrl V Ctrl B Ctrl V Ctrl B Ctrl V etc ...

I would expect the word hello to appear alternatively bold and non-bold:

hellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohello

and it is not the case. The word hello appears always non-bold as follows:

hellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohellohello

If I do it in WordPad, the word hello does appear alternatively bold and non-bold as expected.

Why does Microsoft Word not react correctly like WordPad?

Answer 1

Hi Emmanuel,

I agree with your opinion and I understand your frustration. When the user press CTRL+B, it means the user want to input the following characters in bold format, the pasting behavior in Word just break the user's intention.

As per my test, this behavior exist in the old Word 2013 version, personally I think this should be a by designed setting, but not sure about Office suite developers' intention on this. In this kind of scenario, please refer to MVP Stefan's suggestion, submit your feedback to Microsoft in the Word application. This is one of the most efficient way to let the related team see your concerns.

How do I give feedback on Microsoft Office?

Hope you will receive a detailed explanation about the different paste behaviors in Excel&Word.

Appreciate for your effort in this community.

BR,

Alex Chen

Answer 2

Hi Emmanuel,

Thanks for bringing this interesting topic.

After reading your post,  I did a test on my side. As you mentioned the WordPad could apply the bold format to the pasted non-format text with the combination of CTRL+B & CTRL+V, however, it doesn't work in Word.

Per my observation, when you paste the non-formatted text in Word, it's going to apply the format of the previous character. As shown in the gif below:

If I press CTRL+B and press space, as the space's format is bold, the pasted content will be changed to bold as well.

The behavior is similar in OneNote , PowerPoint. But in Excel, it behave the same as WordPad:

I've tested the most recent Office 365 versions as well as the old Office 2013. And seems like all the Word versions behave the same, so I think this might be a by designed settings in Word. I also checked some official articles:

Control the formatting when you paste text

Under the Get the look you want section, you will see this part:

 

I think this might explain why the paste function act this way. However, I am also wondering why it works in Excel, maybe the answer could only be provided by the Office app's developers. 

Hope you are doing well, stay safe.

Regards,

Alex Chen

Answer 3

I see no reason why Word should ignore the Ctrl B.

My point was that Word is not the only program that "ignores" Ctrl+B in the situation we are discussing here. You could just as well argue that Word and Publisher are doing this properly and that WordPad is wrong.

Answer 4

What you copied to the Clipboard was not bold. After pressing Ctrl+B, what you next type will be bold, but pasted text will not change its format.

Answer 5

Ctrl+B sets Bold

Ctrl+C copies

Ctrl+V pastes