"Paste and Match Style" (ctrl-s-v) loses formatting

Bold, italic, etc aren’t being copied like they are when I paste into Word.

Paste and Match Style will remove all the formatting in the copied text. The style it is matching to is the style in the document you are pasting into. A normal Paste should retain the formatting.

Yes, sounds like it’s working as designed. Scrivener’s Paste and Match Style is functionally equivalent to Word’s Paste Keep Text Only.

Best,
Jim

Italics aren’t just formatting, they’re meaning. A word italicized has a different meaning than one not (emphasis, thoughts, etc). Losing them upon pasting would be like losing quotes.

The same is often true for bold, underline, and strikethrough. Paste and match style should do just that, not change the meaning of what was pasted.

No. Italics is a format.
The manual 15.5.5 says:
"If you know for a fact you have no need at all for the formatting you are pasting in, you can use the special Edit ▸ Paste and Match Style command to do so. This will treat the text as though it were plain-text, and as such it will take on all of the characteristics of the text around the cursor position where it is pasted. Since the text is treated as plain-text, this means you will lose any inline formatting and function, such as hyperlinks and italics. "

Shaun, if you don’t like the results of Paste & Match Style, then don’t use it. Use Paste.

Perhaps if you told us what you’re trying to accomplish, someone could provide more useful guidance to you.

Best,
Jim

Paste includes things like spacing, font size, background color, etc.

Since italics and etc have semantic meaning, it would be useful to have a way to paste just them, without also pasting the formatting (spacing, etc). There is a reason this is an option in Word.

Use “Paste”, then “Document > Convert > Text to Default Formatting…”—or whatever the wording is,

:slight_smile:

Mark

This. Scrivener can achieve the sort of “blending” that Word does, but uses this different way of doing it. It actually allows more control, since Document > Convert > Formatting to Default Text Style (= Ctrl+G, Ctrl+V) brings up a dialog with a variety of options regarding what to preserve. And if you don’t like the results, Ctrl+Z undoes them, unlike Paste and Match Style.