Hi Tom,

You can change the behaviour with a macro:

Sub EditPaste()
On Error GoTo ErrHandler
Selection.PasteAndFormat (wdFormatPlainText)
Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
WordBasic.EditPaste
End Sub

Since it's called "EditPaste", it'll run instead of the built-in command.
Unfortunately, you'll loose the smart tag in Word2003 that allows you to
change the pasted text to "Keep original formatting" or "Use destination
formatting" after you pasted.

So I'd add to your suggestion that this issue gets fixed, and
Selection.PasteAndFormat shows the smart tag (... and WordBasic.EditPaste
does, too).

Until it's fixed, I would rename the above macro to "myEditPaste" and assign
a different keyboard shortcut to it. That way, you'll still be able to paste
as formatted text -- keeping the original formatting or using the destination
formatting -- if you want to.

Regards,
Klaus