XL: Text Formatting Not Pasted from Other Application

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0c
• Microsoft Excel for Windows NT, version 5.0
• Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel, when you paste information from another application, such as Microsoft Word, formatting that is applied to the information you copied is not pasted in Microsoft Excel. For example, if you copy text in Microsoft Word that is formatted with Times New Roman font, bold formatting, and the color red, when you paste the text in Microsoft Excel, the text appears in your Normal style font, not bold, in Automatic color.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because Microsoft Excel does not support pasting Rich Text Formatting (RTF), even though Rich Text Formatting is supported in cells. You can, for example, format a word in a cell as Times New Roman, Bold, 15 point, green, while the rest of the text in the cell is Arial 10 point.

Note that formatted text is supported when you copy information in Microsoft Excel and paste it to Microsoft Word or another application.

WORKAROUNDS

To work around this behavior, you can use any of the following methods:

Method 1: If the application you are pasting from supports OLE, you can

          paste the information as an object. For example, you can paste
          information from Microsoft Word as a Microsoft Word Document
          object. The object then retains all formatting.

          Microsoft Excel.