The Formatting Chaos
When compiling a report in Google Docs, you will likely copy and paste information from various sources—webpages, PDFs, or other documents. If you simply press Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V on Mac) to paste, Google Docs automatically attempts to preserve the formatting of the original source. If you copy a headline from a website that was sized at 24pt, it will paste into your 11pt document as 24pt text. This forces Google Docs to automatically change the text size of that specific paragraph, breaking the visual flow of your document and forcing you to manually re-highlight and resize the text back to normal.
Pasting Without Formatting
To maintain a clean, uniform document and stop Google Docs from automatically changing the text size every time you insert copied content, you must change the way you execute the paste command.
The solution is not found in the settings menu, but in your keyboard habits. Stop using the standard Paste command. Whenever you copy text from an external source and want to insert it into your document, place your cursor where you want the text. Instead of pressing Ctrl+V, press Ctrl+Shift+V (or Cmd+Shift+Option+V on a Mac). This executes the “Paste without formatting” command. Google Docs will strip away all the font sizes, colors, and bolding from the source material and automatically apply the size and style of the text immediately surrounding your cursor (your “Normal text” style). Alternatively, you can right-click and select Paste without formatting from the context menu.