Updated Paste Plain Text AppleScript for Word 2008

adc448 (apparently) - 04:12am Mar 30, 2008 PST
via email

Kissell's Applescript serves certain purposes but not others. In my opinion,
it doesn't actually solve the real problem. What I want, and need, is Paste
and Match Style: the pasted text adopts the font and font size of the
destination document/document section, but retains other characteristics
such as italics, bf -- and, perhaps most importantly, footnotes.

Kissell's script strips away all of that, so it has limited utility. Word
enables it in a cumbersome way: Edit>Paste Special>choose Formatted text
(RTF) from menu>click Okay. Probably possible to Applescript that, but I
don't know scripting well enough to try. If someone out there does, the
undying gratitude of thousands will serve as your reward.

[First: Please call me Joe. Second: On my computer, in Word 2008, using the Formatted Text (RTF) option in the Paste Special dialog preserves all the styling of the pasted text, including font and size. Although you can duplicate that feature using AppleScript, you get the same result. On the other hand, if you use the AppleScript equivalent for Styled Text, the pasted text adopts the size of the surrounding text but keeps its font. Attributes like italics are preserved, but footnotes aren't. In short, I know of no way to get precisely the effect you want, because I'm unaware of any way to selectively paste only some, but not all, style attributes - Mac OS X treats them as a bundle. -Joe Kissell]