To emphasize and add clarity to a Word document, you can format the text in a paragraph.
You can make the text bold, italicize it, underline it, and more. This is character-level formatting.
You can also add paragraph-level formattings, like indents, line spacing, paragraph spacing, and more.
This is where you might run into problems. Word applies an underlining style to every paragraph. You may want to format a paragraph without changing the associated style. But Word does not allow such formatting.
Sometimes you may find formatting a text or paragraph is taking too long or is not working at all. The best way out is to clear all the formatting and start afresh.
Word offers three ways of removing formatting in documents:
- By using keystroke shortcuts
- By changing the style
- By using Clear All Formatting
Note that you can use the above methods to remove formatting from a few paragraphs of the document. You can also apply the methods to an entire document to clear its formatting.
We will show you all three methods. Let us begin.
Method #1: Remove formatting by using keystroke shortcuts
Step #1: Open the document
Open the Word document where you want to remove the formatting.
Select the paragraph you want to change. You may type Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all text in the entire document.
Step #2: Remove formatting
Remove character-level formatting: On your keyboard, type Ctrl+Space.
Word removes any special fonts, bold/italics, font size, etc, from the text, reverting to default.
Paragraph-level formatting remains intact.
Remove paragraph-level formatting: On your keyboard, type Ctrl+Q.
Word removes all indenting, line spacing, etc. from the paragraph. The paragraph reverts to the Normal Style of the document.
Character-level formatting remains intact.
Normal formatting: On your keyboard, type Ctrl+Shift+N.
Word reverts the selection to Normal formatting.
Remove all formatting: On your keyboard, type Ctrl+Shift+N, followed by Ctrl+Space.
Word removes all paragraph-level and character-level formatting. The selection reverts to Normal Style and Normal format of the document.
Method #2: Remove formatting by changing the style
Step #1: Open the document
Open the Word document where you want to remove the formatting.
Select the paragraph you want to change. You may type Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all text in the entire document.
Step #2: Open the Styles menu
Click on the Home tab on the top menu bar to change the ribbon.
In the Styles section, click the down arrow in the bottom right corner.
This opens the Styles menu.
Step #3: Clear all formatting
In the Styles menu, click on Clear All.
Word removes all formatting from the selection.
To close the Styles menu click on the X in the top right-hand corner.
Word returns to the document.
Method #3: Clear all formatting by using the Clear All Formatting icon
Step #1: Open the document
Open the Word document where you want to remove the formatting.
Select the paragraph you want to change. You may type Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all text in the entire document.
Step #2: Clear all formatting
Click on the Home tab on the top menu bar to change the ribbon.
In the Font section, click the Change All Formatting icon.
Word removes all formatting from the selection and returns to the document.
Conclusion
You should now be in a position to remove any unresponsive formatting from your Word document and reformat it the way you want.