The paste button you see after pasting data is known as a smart tag. There are many smart tags in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that are used to perform many time-saving actions. However, we will focus on the paste tag button in this week's tip.

 

The Paste Options button appears below text that you paste. When you place your mouse over the paste button a down arrow will appear within the button (see Figure 1) and when clicked you will have a list of options for use in specifying how you want your information to be pasted. 

 

When you paste information from one location of a document or even to another document the paste default is to keep the source formatting rather than taking on the formatting of the paste destination but what if you wanted the data you pasted to take on the formatting of the area you pasted within? That's where the paste tag button comes in handy.

 

When the paste button appears hover over the button and click the down arrow within and a list of paste options will appear. Choose "Match Destination Formatting" (see Figure 1) and your data will take on the formatting of the area you pasted within.

 

If you would like to view a flash video of this tip please use the link below: