Most of us use the basic Microsoft Office commands of Copy and Paste on a daily basis. Nothing too exciting there. However, I often get annoyed with the Paste Options pop-up which shows up each time I paste something into a Word document or Excel sheet. The pop-up menu has a few useful options, but it mostly gets in the way and likes to linger around longer than necessary, slowing me down. Are you fed up with the Paste Options pop-up? Let’s get rid of it!
Editor Update 12/4/2016 – Although the screenshots below were taken from Word, this tip applies to all Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), and versions including 2010, 2013 and 2016.
Step 1 – Click the File > Options.
Step 2 – Click the Advanced tab and Scroll down the right pane window. Under the heading Cut, copy, and paste, Uncheck the box labeled Show Paste Options button when content is pasted.
Once you’ve unchecked it, Click OK to exit and save changes.
Done!
Now when you paste items into Microsoft Office documents, you will no longer be plagued by the Paste Options. Albeit, the Popup can be useful, but the majority of the time it just gets in the way.
63 Comments
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groovinJackman
Nice – this was a lot less cumbersome than removing the mini-toolbar:
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/how-to/how-to-disable-the-right-click-mini-toolbar-in-word-2007-and-word-2010/
Laurie
Thank you for this one. I find myself “plagued” all the time. I’m so glad there is someone like groovy post figuring out all this stuff for me! I look forward to the daily emails and save them for future reference.
MrGroove
Hi Laurie! All of us here at groovyPost thank you for the great feedback! We work hard to put something out everyday so thanks for taking the time to drop a note. We read EVERY comment. Also, feel free to comment on articles you love so we know what you groovyReaders want us to write about. Were geeks so we love to write about anything Tech. Might as well be what you guys are interested in!
-Steve
Ziggy
Wow! I’ve never seen so many thank you’s for such a simple, nifty little tip like this in my many years of surfing the net. So, I’m going to add my thank you to this deceptively and ingenious tip…Thank you… Thank you… Thank you… And keep up those brilliant ideas which keep me tracking back to GroovyPost, time and time again!.
Gabrielle
Thank you so much Austin. I was being driven nuts by the appearance of this Paste Option box every time I made a correction to my Dragonspeak text. Half my time was taken up removing it and then getting back to business. Your instructions were clear and I followed them easily. (I’m a blonde!)
I’m grateful for your knowledge and your willingness to share it.
Cliff
Thanks, exactly what I was looking for!
Erica
thank god! This is SO ANNOYING! It got in my way ALL THE TIME. Thanks!
CC
Ditto!!
Yukes
Thank you thank you!!
Happy Editor
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This was REALLY annoying!!!!
Lois
THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
FountainpenLady
One person’s godsend is another person’s pox. WORD does try to be so much. So cool and for that its dedicated teams have my gratitude, especially now that the references function, e.g. citations, etc., is growing up in Office 2010. The software has a long way to go, however, before providing scholar-friendly word-processing with the tools of a Nota Bene. But nine out of 10 receiving institutions only take WORD .docs formats. So, like a fly in the room, there are constant pop-ups and flashes of margin readings, etc. Thanks for swatting at least one down.
Here’s a tough question. How does one get the references’ master list to print out or even copy?
Thanks very much.
heidisierra
Thank you!!
Tony Thomas
When i copy and paste i want the original format of the internet with the hyperlink but my word document only shows keep text only format and checked.
(File/options/advanced/cut,copy and paste) it is all set on (Keep source formatting(Default)). and still i see only the keep text only format on the paste option.
Chris
Thank you so much, I get really tired of Microsoft doing all this unnecessary crap that just annoys you more than being helpful. All this extra stuff and clutter should be disabled by default in my opinion.
Robert
I usually use Notepad++. but occasionally have to use Word. Word sure seems bloated and distracting. Thanks for helping me quiet Word down a little.
Thank you!
Cathy
I did this and it STILL SHOWS UP! Grrrrrrrr.
CC
I had to do it a couple of times. :/
JoJo
Thank you so much!!! Very helpful.
Steve Krause
You bet! Glad it helped you out. Thanks for the comment.
Sent from my Mobile
Bruce
It stops the paste options from showing up when you alt v but when right clicking and selecting paste, the option bar still shows up. Any idea on how to remove the paste option when right clicking to paste?
Janis Jocklin
THANK YOU!!!
Steve Krause
heheh you bet Janis! Welcome to groovyPost, thanks for the feedback!
Ferd
Yes, very irritating thing, that paste bar. The thing that fascinates me the most is that this paste bar is implemented like this. That it lingers on to do more pastes i can understand, but after 2 or 3 seconds it should be clear the user wants to move on. Probably it is simply forgotten to program a time limit.
Daniel
Thank you. This was getting to be a new Clippy….
Mark
From Belgium thanks too, what a annoying thingie from MS, it must be in their way too when they design it? Whatever, I can go back to work again without this annoying menu in my screen. Have a nice day
Wojtek Sokolowski
Thanks a lot. This was helpful. The “nanny corporation” approach that Micro$oft et al. take is really annoying. Why don’t they turn all their “options” off by default and let the user decide which one he or she needs?
Gary
Thank you!
amy
Thank you!
Paul
Thank you!
Steve Krause
You bet! Glad the tip helped you out!
Matt
Thanks for the tip.
I find the Paste Bar useful at times and don’t want it to go away permanently. When it does get in my way, I find that pressing the escape key will make it go away.
Kailasa
Thanks Matt!
I didn’t want to completely disable this function as this article describes…just wanted to get rid of the icon once I didn’t need it. (In older versions of Word it would disappear after the next text entry/selection/etc.
Thank you for solving my problem!!!
Michael
thank you for this
been getting in the way for years and just today i bothered to look up how to do something about it.
Nancy
Yes, thank you, thank you!!
Michael
i just wonder if you can help me with similar topic,”how to disable paste option in access 2010″? because there is no advanced option…..thank you.
RJ
Thank you so much! That icon was driving me nuts!
Adrian
Thank you so much for this. I finally took care of this after having been annoyed by it for so long. I can’t understand why they would put that feature.
Anyways, thank you so much!!
Phil
Thanks so much for posting this. Helped me out considerably.
sharon paddock
Cannot thank you enough! : )
Sandra de Roos
Thanks for making this annoying thing go away so quickly!
PersembeBaligi
Thank you so much. I cannot describe the relieve that I’m in right now…
Catherine
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can’t even imagine how delighted I am now that I found how to remove this stupid pop-up that lingers forever right where I want to edit my text.
God bless!
Connor
Oh my God! Thank you! I’ve been ready to throw something at my monitor ’cause I can’t see what the heck I’m editing half the time. You’re a lifesaver!
Steve Krause
Ha! Well I’m glad you found our tip vs. lose a monitor! Really happy you found our site! Thanks for the comment.
someguy
Looking for for alternate ways to remove it, see same instructions on many other sites.
Paste Options still show up even with everything unchecked, seen other comments about this.
Oranges
Thank you for this helpful advice!
randy
Thank you! That was helpful. Why can’t the Word “Help” section be that easy?
Praveen
Thanks alot
Rosie
Many thanks for this. I’m trying to fix a fiddly list and not an expert Word user. This was driving me nuts! It was covering bits of text I needed to select.
SG
Thank you. You are my friend from now on.
Magnus
Thank you!!!!
Soraya
OMG THANK YOU.. I should have googled this YEARS AGO!!!
Steve Krause
You know what’s funny? I used this tip back with Word 2013 then forgot about it. Just fixed it again myself on 2016!
Glad this tip helped you out! Be sure to share the link back here with your friends!
-S
groovyPost.com
timmyjoe42
Excellent. Helped me out. I’m not sure why MicroSoft feels the need to have this turned on AND to always have it pop up right where my cursor is so I can’t see where I am typing.
Steve Krause
Agreed. It’s pretty much “always” in my way.
Jason Kelly
REALLY annoying!Very helpful Thank you!
Jennifer
Any tips on doing it for Powerpoint 2016 for Mac? I can’t find the options you show in the instructions. This paste options box is driving me crazy!!
Bob
Please reply if you find a solution. I have the same problem. Arrrgh!
Julie
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! This has been driving me crazy for months! Finally got fed up with it today and decided to fix the problem once and for all! You are awesome!!!
Bob
Please reply if you find a solution. I have the same problem.
Jeffrey Riggs
Thank you Thank You THANK YOU. Would the person from Microsoft that “enabled this” please comment? I often wonder on “WHY” with so many things you do. An explanation would help, so we don’t think bad of MicroSoft.
Mary Brady
I can’t thank you enough!!