How do I copy and paste from a Word Doc to a new Mac email message without getting big spaces between paragraphs?
When I create a Word document (.docx) and then want to copy all or part of it to a Mac email message, I get big spaces between paragraphs. This is true even when I use the Paste and Match Style command. This command only matches the format of the words, not the paragraphs.
The only workaround I’ve found is to paste the Word document into a Text Edit document and then copy from Text Edit into email.
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Marj Green
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How Do I Copy From Word To Mac Email Without Big Spaces Between Paragraphs?
Comments: 4 Responses to “How Do I Copy From Word To Mac Email Without Big Spaces Between Paragraphs?”
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Yes, I can see what you mean. It looks like Word is setting the line spacing, or the before/after paragraph amount to something other than 0 when you copy. Then Mail, which doesn't have those formatting options just uses whatever Word sends it through the copy/paste. Strange that Paste and Match Style doesn't work. But it makes sense that pasting through TextEdit works as then TextEdit does handle that formatting.
What's even weirder is that when you set the format of your Mail message to plain text, which is what I use, you would expect that line spacing isn't an issue. And it isn't. Instead, you get a whole extra line between paragraphs! Maybe Word is using the old carriage return + line feed ending to paragraphs (two characters) instead of just a return (one character). This used to be a fundamental difference between Windows and Mac text, but I haven't seen it as an issue in a while.
So using TextEdit may be your only solution. Or, use Plain Text formatting and delete those extra spaces. Or, don't use Word to compose text for email messages -- maybe use Pages instead, or just compose in Mail.
I use a great little helper from the Mac App Store called "Get Plain Text" by ZipZapMac: http://zipzapmac.com/GetPlainText … you can set it to auto-convert any copied text to plain text, or you can clear the current clipboard manually with a keyboard shortcut, if that's more to your liking. All Word formatting is removed, incl. extra lines etc. Nice bonus: a simplify-quotes functionality. And it's freeware, but you can give the developer a tip, if you want.
I copy the text into a dummy contact (address book) which strips all formatting, then copy and paste in to WORD
oops - I said that backwards - I copy the text from WORD into a dummy contact (address book) which strips all formatting, then copy and paste in to MAIL