How to Convert Word to Plain Text Instantly

Convert Word file to Plain Text – Ever feel like your Word doc is performing a full on disco of fonts and colors, but all you wanna do is drop a chill paragraph? You’re not the only one! Rich text is cool when you are doing art, but if you simply want to extract text from a Word document without all the bells and whistles, it just stinks.

Don’t freak, dude! Your secret weapon, this essential guide is your ultimate guide. We have shown you how to easily remove all text formatting and convert Microsoft Word to clean text that is so smooth it almost glides.

So What Is Plain Text, Anyway? Convert Word file to Plain Text

Imagine plain and simple text – no fancy fonts, no bold or italics, no links. That’s plain text. It is the equivalent of the classic black t-shirt in the digital world: simple, multi-compatible, always good.

On the other hand, Word docs are “rich text” – and a playground to play with every pixel. But when you need a clean slate and you know how to remove formatting word it is your superpower.

Why Go Naked? The Naked Truth About The Power of Pretzel Text

You might ask anyone why on earth they would take such action in charring their text of its glory? The answer is that it fits in and is coherent. Think of plain text as the universal computer language – everybody speaks it without a translator:

Also known as going “plain,” for the following reasons it’s often a game changer:

Universal Compatibility: Plain text opens everywhere, on anything, in anything, it’s just so easy. No longer will “font not found” spoil your layout!
Web Forms & Online Fields: Ever try and paste a fancy paragraph into an online application? It either appears like a hot mess or breaks. Plain text is your hero.
Coding & Programming: Plain text is the breath and blood of developers. Word to html plain text is the key to web dev.
Email & Newsletters: If you want to ensure that your message appears the same for everyone, regardless of their email client, copy and paste the email body into the text of your email.
Speed & Efficiency: Plain text files are small! They load faster, transfer better and do not hog storage.

Master Plan: How to Convert Word to Text – Step by Step

Needless to say, if you want to get away from the design drama. Let’s explore how you can best take your fancy Word doc and turn it into a clean plain text document. Various cool ways, not to mention a couple of free and online tools!

Method 1: The Cut & Paste Method Convert Word file to Plain Text (The Speedy Ninja Method)

This is most likely the quickest trick when you need to cut something up on the fly, or when you need to just remove styles from word on the fly.

1. Highlight Your Text: Launch Word and highlight the text that you want.
2. Select, Copy, Copy: Shift Ctrl+C (Windows) or Cmd+C (Mac).
3. The Notepad (or TextEdit) Trick: Start the plain text editor Rainbow Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). These are plain by default.
4. Paste It: Paste the copied text using Ctrl+V or Cmd+V. Boom! Formatting disappears.
5. Re – Copy (Optional): Now you have pure plain text. Cut and paste anywhere using Notepad

Pro Tip: When copying to Microsoft Word, once you copy, you can use “Word -> Paste Special -> Unformatted Text” and you will be prompted to copy the word to plain text, in Word or E-mail.

Method 2: The Web Savvy Solution: Word to Plain Text Online Converters

If you’ve got an entire document and need the conversion to be done and you have dedicated word to plain text online programs, these are the best allies. Many are free “word to text converter” services.

1. Rely on a Trustworthy Converter: Google “word to plain text online” and you will find options like TextFixer, Online-Convert or Convertio (for larger files).
2. Upload Your Document: Click on the link that says “Upload File” or “Choose File.” Select your Word document (.doc or .docx).
3. Start Conversion: Click on “Convert” or “Extract Text.” The tool will also perform the text file conversion.
4. Download or Copy: Once it’s done you can download a .txt file or simply copy word to plain text from the text area. Easy!

These so-called ‘alternatives’ are great for batch work or if you don’t have a version of Word installed on your computer.

Method 3: Saving Directly as a Simple Text File (The Native Word Method)

Word has the option to quickly save if your doc is already relatively straightforward.

1. Open in Word: Open the document that you wish to convert.
2. File > Save As: Click on the “File” menu and then on “Save As.”
3. Select Location: Select the location to save the newly created plain text document.
4. Change File Type: In the Save as type dropdown list, select Plain Text (.txt).
5. File Naming: Add a cool descriptive name to your document.
6. Encoding Options (Important!): A dialog window called “File Conversion” appears. Typically, you can be content with Windows (Default) or UTF-8. UTF-8 is most generally used, particularly for special characters. Click “OK.”

There you have it, a clean text file that is ready for anything. This is robust technique of text file conversion.

Method 4: The Email Trick (The I’m Desperate for Plain Text Hack).

This may sound strange but it does work if nothing else is too difficult or unavailable to do.

1. Write a New Email – Open Gmail, Outlook etc. particularly to prepare a new email.
2. Paste Your Word Content: Copy from Word and paste at the body. Most email clients will try to preserve some format yet they usually simplify it tremendously.
3. Copy from Email: Select all text in the email message, Then Copy it and paste into Notepad (or another plain editor)
4. Voila! The email client is like a formatter, that would allow you to remove styles from word you don’t widely support

Who Needs This Superpower?

In fact, nearly anyone can use this feature of convert Microsoft word to text. Here is a quick list of the biggest fans:

Students: Completing essays of online portals requiring a pure text. No more crazy characters appearing!
Bloggers & Content Creators: Copying/Pasting articles here into WordPress/other CMS. Editing Changes one extra step: Copy word to plain text to avoid font surprises and spacing issues.
Developers & Programmers: Code blocks without formatting hell or text pasted into config files. This is where word to html plain text comes in.
Business Professionals: Completing online forms or databases, or writing simple reports that can be understood by anyone
Everyone creating a website: Taking Word content over to web pages – you need to remove styles from word or you will get nasty inline styling.

The significance of Text File Conversion in Your Day-to-Day Digital Lifestyle

In our interconnected world, information needs to be a seamless process. Extraction of the text of a Word document into a plain text document is a digital literacy skill. It allows you to make your contents accessible, manageable and presentable from everywhere.

Thinking of the differences between plain vs rich text? Pretty simple – plain text rules the day for compatibility and simplicity. These free tools and hassle-free methods give you control over your content instead of allowing formatting control run loose.

Good-bye, Formatting Follies!

You have just mastered the art of removal of text formatting! Whether you are using the fast clip paste or a convenient word to plain text online converter or Word’s built-in “Save As” feature, you are equipped to overcome any text conversion challenge. No more break a sweat over copy word to plain text that online form or blog post requires.

Go ahead, convert, with pride, and revel in the pure, unadulterated beauty of plain text. Your online existence just cooled off by one degree!