Hi There, I was just wondering if anyone knows how to remove paragraph formatting in Word. Under the Help section in Keyboard Shortcuts I have found how to remove character formatting (command + shift + Z) and you can remove ALL formatting by clicking the 'clear formatting' button in the ribbon, however I can't seem to figure out how to clear paragraph formatting. The shortcut on a PC is ctrl + Q, I have spent a lot of time searching google for the answer. Most of what I come up with is how to use the 'show/hide non printing characters' which is not what I'm looking for. I have found a few different sites that say to use command + shift + q but that just wants to quit the program. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
![Shortcut Shortcut](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125486185/297917799.jpg)
Click to expand.Hi rdowns, thanks for the response. Yes I can bring the paragraph dialog box up that way and then I guess I could manually set everything the way I want, however I'm looking for a way to quickly remove all paragraph formatting so that it removes everything that's been done to the paragraph (indents, spacing etc.) to the default. There should be some shortcut; there is a shortcut to remove all formatting done to a document (so removes paragraph as well as character formatting), there is a shortcut to remove only character formatting (removes, italics, bold, etc) and then there should be one for just the paragraph.
At least there is on PC. It makes sense that there should be one for that Mac too. Or another way of doing it without having to reset everything one by one.
Many Word users don’t use styles to format their documents. Instead, they apply manual formatting to text, and press Enter twice each time they want a bit of white space between paragraphs. However, if the document goes through several review cycles, there’s a good chance that one of the reviews will involve applying a template — and thus its styles — to the original document. And this can result is excessive white space between paragraphs where an extra Enter was used to add space. For example, in the screen shot below, the author has pressed Enter once at the end of each paragraph. However, the eye is used to differentiating one paragraph from another with white space, so the author presses Enter again to get that extra bit of space, as in the screen shot below: When one of the reviewers applies a template with styles that include paragraph ‘leading’ (the above/below space for a paragraph), the result is too much white space, as shown in this next screen shot: Now, if you only have a few paragraphs to tidy up, you could remove the excess paragraph marks manually. But as soon as you have a page or more of these empty paragraphs, you’ll want a quicker way to get rid of them.
Here’s how (this works in both Word 2003 and Word 2007). Press Ctrl+H to open Word’s Find and Replace dialog box. In the Find what field, type ^p^p (that’s two lots of Shift+6 to get the ^ character followed immediately by a lower case p — the p MUST be lower case).
DO NOT insert any spaces. What you’re doing here is getting Word to look for any paragraph mark ( ^p) followed immediately by another paragraph mark (the other ^p).
Have you ever opened up a Word document to find it full of paragraph marks and other symbols? If you’re editing the doc or troubleshooting a formatting issue, you may find this view especially useful. But if you don’t want to see the formatting marks, simply toggle the paragraph button–seen in.
In the Replace with field, type ^p (once, no spaces) to replace two consecutive paragraph marks with just one. Click Replace All.
When Word has finished replacing the two consecutive paragraphs with one, you’ll get something like this, where the white space is only controlled by the above/below values for the paragraph’s style: Other uses:. To replace two consecutive tabs with a single tab: Find ^t^t and replace with ^t. To replace two consecutive soft line breaks with one: Find ^l^l and replace with ^l (that’s a lower case L for library).
See also:. Replace excess spaces: /. Remove excess characters:. Carriage returns versus paragraph returns — the saga of ^p versus ^13: Links last checked May 2010.
![Marks Marks](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125486185/650522300.png)
This is a great tip and technique and one I’ve used for years. The thing is, it has just stopped working for me in Word 2007, and it’s only on a particular file. I can see the two paragraph markers in my document, but when I search for two, it can’t find them. I can search for one paragraph marker, and it finds each of the individual ones, including the consecutive ones, one at a time. I’m thinking that, because I create the file as text and sucked it into Word, it might have a CR/LF not a paragraph marker?
Bruce Langston May 27, 2010 at 6:12 am. Hi Clark Very strange. I’ve used this in Word since at least Word 2000, and currently use in in Word 2003, 2007 and 2010. Some reasons as to why it may not be working:. make sure you use a lower case ‘p’. make sure there are no spaces between the ‘^’ and the ‘p’. make sure ‘Use wildcards’ is NOT turned on (click the ‘More’ button to find this check box, and turn it off if it’s on).
try this via the find/replace options: Click ‘More’ then the ‘Special’ button — ‘Paragraph mark’ is the top one listed. try closing then reopening Word and trying again One other thing, are you using a Mac version of Word? I’ve heard that some features aren’t available in the Mac version, but as I don’t have a Mac, I don’t know what they are. –Rhonda February 10, 2012 at 5:54 am.