Microsoft Office has a Paste Special feature that may or may not be turned on automatically. If you’re not educated on what this feature is, it comes up whenever text is pasted into a document and offers options on what to do with the pasted text.
For example, you can choose to merge the text with the document’s formatting or keep the original format. This is a neat feature, and we recommend that all Microsoft Office users take full advantage of it.
Paste Special option is missing or not showing in Office
Now, we understand that some users are having problems with Paste Special because, for some strange reason, it has failed to show up when words have been pasted. But worry not, we know how to fix the problem, and this article you’re reading right now will explain how to get it up and running again.
- Via the Options menu in Microsoft Office
- Via Advanced activate Paste Special
- Open Office program in Safe Mode
We will use Microsoft Word as an example for this, but it will work for other programs in the Suite.
1] Open the Options menu in Microsoft Office
OK, so the first thing you will want to do here is open the Options menu. This can be done by simply clicking on File and then navigating to Options.
2] Go to Advanced activate Paste Special
After firing up the Options menu, the next step is to navigate to Advanced. From there, go to the section that says, Cut, copy, and paste, then tick the box beside the Show paste options button when content is pasted.
Hit the OK button, restart your Microsoft Office program and try again to see if the Paste Special feature works as intended.
3] Open Office program in Safe Mode
If activating the Paste Special feature does not work, the problem may lie with the add-ons you’ve installed. The best option at this point is to open your Microsoft Office program in Safe Mode and try to figure out what is going on.
OK, so to get it done, please press the CTRL key and open Microsoft Word. From there, just wait for the software to open. Finally, check if the Paste Special feature is working as intended. If it is, it means one of your add-ons is the root issue.
Re-enable the add-ons one after the other, and be sure to test the Paste Special feature each time an add-on is enabled. Should it ever stop working during reactivation, you’ll have an idea of which add-on is the primary culprit.
Read next: How to Add the Draw Tool Tab to Ribbon in Office if it is missing.
I hope this helps.
