Pasting into a template (Word 2002)

[maryweale]

I have created a new template to accommodate our new letterhead with a limited range of styles and formats. However, I have just realised that if I copy and paste an existing document into the template, I lose all my new house styles and formatting options, for example Normal reverts to the copied document settings rather than those of the template. I know that there are lots of standard bits of text that are going to need copying onto the new templates, so how do I get round this? There does not seem to be a paste special as in excel.

[HansV]

Welcome to Woody's Lounge!

When you copy text from one document into another one, Word looks at the style it uses. If the style does not exist in the target document, Word copies the style from the source document to the target document. But if the style already exists in the target document, Word will apply the target document style to the copied text.

Word *does* have a Paste Special option in the Edit menu. If you don't see it, make sure that you always show full menus (you can specify this in the Options tab of Tools | Customize...)
One of the options in the Paste Special dialog is "Unformatted text". If you use this option, you'll lose all formatting of the copied text, and the text will take on the formatting of the location where you paste it.

[maryweale]

That works perfectly, thank you very much. You have made lots of people's lives easier with that response!