Copy Unformatted Text in Google Chrome

When you have to copy – paste something from a webpage without all the fonts, colors and images into an editor like MS Word, you first copy and paste it in Notepad so it loses all the HTML formatting. Then you copy it from Notepad and into MS Word. But this is time consuming and tiresome. If you are a Google Chrome user, then you are in luck. You can use the Copy Without Formatting extension for Chrome browser to copy unformatted text right from a webpage. Here is how :

  1. Visit Copy Without Formatting extension page in your Google Chrome browser.
  2. Click on the blue Install button to install the Copy Without Formatting extension.

    Copy Without Formatting extension

  3. After installing the Copy Without Formatting extension, you are ready to copy unformatted text from a webpage. Just select any text content on any webpage. You would see a floating button at the bottom of the selection. Click on this button to copy the unformatted text into the clipboard. You can also use the shortcut key which is Ctrl + Shift + C by default.

    Copy Without Formatting extension

  4. You can open the extensions page in Google Chrome by typing chrome://extensions/ in the omnibar (location bar). In the extension options for Copy Without Formatting, you can set a custom shortcut key. You can also enable or disable the floating button which appears when you select some text on a webpage. You can choose the style of this floating button as well.

    Copy Without Formatting extension

  5. If you enable the Auto Copy option, then the selected text will be automatically copied to the clipboard as soon as you make the selection. This way you do not have to press any buttons or use any keyboard shortcuts.

This is a great extension for those who want to save or print a webpage’s text material without all the formatting used on that webpage. After copying the unformatted text you can format it as you like in your favorite editor like Microsoft Word.