Have you ever pasted text into Slack or Google Docs and noticed that everything looks just plain wrong ? You’re not alone.
Formatting is a mess on the internet right now, mostly because different apps use different standards. There’s rich text, used by the likes of Microsoft Word and Google Docs. There’s Markdown, an increasingly common way of formatting text using plain-text characters—Reddit and Discord both use this. And then there’s Slack, which for some reason uses its own formatting scheme entirely.
The result? Copying and pasting text between apps often turns into a serious headache. And sure, you can always fix the formatting by hand, if you want—but if you’re working with something long or generally just wanting to avoid a hassle, a clever free tool can make all the difference in the world.
This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence . Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!
Your flawless formatting fix-up
Copynpaste is a free website that can format text properly for Reddit, Slack, and other applications.
➜ You just paste in whatever text you’ve copied, choose the app you’re pasting the text into from there, and the site handles all of the formatting for you.
⌚ The entire thing is completely web-based and takes mere seconds to use—no sign-up required.
Personally, I do all my writing in Markdown, because I’m a huge nerd like that. Because of this, I find it frustrating to paste anything into Slack, which uses a slightly different system. But you might do your writing in Microsoft Word, which makes it frustrating to paste text into Reddit. Or so on from there.
Copynpaste makes it super-simple to get pasted text just right, no matter what app you’re using.
What I like about this site is that it detects any formatting automatically—Slack, WhatsApp, Markdown, even rich text copied straight out of Google Docs. Just paste, and it figures out what you started with. Then all you need to do is copy the converted text it gives you and paste it wherever it needs to go.
But this site also gives you a chance to learn. There are detailed formatting guides for a variety of applications, meaning you can actually figure out how to format text properly in somewhere like Slack or WhatsApp. I admire any website that teaches its users to no longer need it, so I think this is a great addition.
Copynpaste is completely web-based . It works on any device and with any web browser.
The website is 100% free, with no ads.
And all text conversion happens entirely in your browser—nothing is uploaded, and no data is ever shared or seen by anyone else.
Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletter —starting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app that’ll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.
