For anyone who has ever tried to preserve the formatting of a Microsoft Word document, only to have it obliterated by pasting in text from another source, relief is finally here. Microsoft has announced a long-awaited update that will change the default paste option in its ubiquitous word processing software from the problematic “keep source formatting” to the much more document-friendly “merge formatting.”

Writers, editors, students, professionals—virtually anyone who uses Word regularly—knows the frustration of carefully crafting a formatted document, only to inadvertently ruin the entire look by pasting in text copied from a website, PDF, or another program. Suddenly, the nice uniform font, sizing, spacing, and styling are overcome by the different formatting of the pasted content, resulting in a messy, inconsistent document.

Historically, Word’s default paste option was “keep source formatting,” meaning any text pasted in would retain all of its original formatting from the source it came from. While occasionally useful for very specific instances, more often than not, this default behavior was disruptive to the careful formatting work already put into the destination document.

With this latest update, Word will now use “merge formatting” as the default paste option. This setting allows pasted text to keep certain formatting aspects like bolding, underlining, lists, and table structures. However, it will adapt the visual styles like font family, size, and color to match the formatting of the document receiving the pasted text. No more broken layouts and inconsistent styling.

For those who prefer the old “keep source formatting” behavior, Microsoft has made it easy to revert to that as the default as well. Simply navigate to File > Options > Advanced > Cut, copy, and paste, then choose “Keep Source Formatting” from the Pasting from other programs drop-down menu.

Additionally, a separate update last year finally enabled the use of the Control + Shift + V shortcut for pasting plain text without any formatting at all.

While a seemingly small change, this update to Word’s default paste option addresses one of the most frequent and frustrating quirks experienced by the software’s broad user base. By finally prioritizing the integrity of document formatting over preserving pasted content’s original styles, Microsoft has removed a pointless friction point that has plagued many Word users for years. It may not be the flashiest or most cutting-edge upgrade, but sometimes solving a stubborn old problem makes all the difference in improving the quality of the user experience.