Whenever you paste text from the internet or another application into Microsoft Word, a small, floating box featuring a clipboard icon immediately appears right next to the pasted text. This is the “Paste Options” button, designed to let you quickly choose whether you want to keep the original source formatting, merge the formatting, or keep the text only.
While this tool can be incredibly useful when assembling a document from various sources, it becomes a major distraction if you are simply pasting plain text and want to continue typing immediately. That floating clipboard icon constantly obscures the text immediately following your paste, forcing you to press the Escape key or click away just to read what you wrote. If you always use keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+Shift+V) to manage your pasting formats anyway, you can completely disable this floating button to keep your screen clear.
Disabling the Paste Options Button
Turning off the Paste Options button requires a quick trip into Word’s advanced configuration settings.
- Open the Microsoft Word desktop application and create a blank document so you can access the main menu.
- Click on the File tab located in the top-left corner of the ribbon menu.
- Look at the very bottom of the green sidebar on the left and click on Options.
- The “Word Options” window will appear. In the left-hand navigation pane, click on Advanced.
- Scroll down the main panel until you find the section titled Cut, copy, and paste.
- Look near the bottom of this specific section for a checkbox labelled Show Paste Options button when content is pasted.
- Click the checkbox to uncheck it.
- Click the OK button at the bottom of the window to save your changes and return to your document.
The change is instantaneous. The next time you paste a block of text into your document, it will drop into place perfectly, and the space below your cursor will remain completely clear. You will no longer have to manually dismiss the floating clipboard icon.