Fixing text formatting

Remove formatting from text pasted into your site.

Last updated January 3, 2025

If you pasted text from another program like Microsoft Word or Google Drive into Squarespace, the text can carry over hidden styling that interferes with how your content displays.

This issue can occur almost anywhere you can enter text in Squarespace, including:

  • Text blocks
  • Blog excerpts
  • Image captions
  • Product descriptions

To avoid formatting issues, we recommend entering text directly in Squarespace. If you like working in a word processor and pasting into Squarespace, consider using a plain text editor such as Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for Mac instead of other programs.

The sections below cover steps you can take to troubleshoot text formatting, reformat text, and prevent these issues from reoccurring.

For detailed information about all the ways you can format text with Squarespace, visit Formatting text.

Fix line spacing

Paragraph and line breaks create spaces in text areas like a text block.

  • To create a new paragraph, press Enter. (This fixes heading formatting issues.)
  • For less spacing, add a line break by pressing Shift + Enter.

If you see large or uneven spacing in your text after following these steps, remove text formatting by following the steps below. Then, delete the extra spaces and use paragraph and line breaks to adjust text as needed.

To learn more about setting the text size to fill the width of the block without line breaks, visit Formatting text.

Tip

A line height of 0em may cause overlapping text, especially on mobile devices.

line_spacing.png

Fix heading issues

If a paragraph doesn't have a full line break, trying to apply Heading 1, 2, or 3 to one line of text can apply the heading to the whole block.

To only apply a Heading format to highlighted text, ensure the text is in its own paragraph by pressing Enter between the next chunk of text.

heading_text_break.png

Paste new content as plain text

When copying and pasting text, we recommend pasting as plain text. This option strips all stray formatting that carries over from an external program so you can apply font, color, and size changes.

There are two ways to paste as plain text in a text block or other text editing area in Squarespace.

Use your mouse or trackpad

Copy the text. Then, click the Paste as Plain Text icon, which looks like a clipboard.

paste_as_plain_text.png

Paste the text in the box, then click OK.

paste_as_plain_text_popup.png

Use your keyboard

You can use a key command to paste plain text. This removes formatting without needing to open the Paste as Plain text box:

  • PC: Ctrl + Shift + V
  • Mac: + Shift + V

You can also use these text shortcuts when adding text in the text block editor.

Remove existing formatting issues

If you’ve already pasted a lot of text into Squarespace, it may be easier to remove the current formatting rather than start over.

Tip

Follow these steps if you're going to apply custom CSS to your text. Otherwise the text may not conform to your code.

To remove existing formatting, highlight the text and click the Remove Formatting button.

Squarespace_text_toolbar_clear_text_formatting_button.jpg

Clicking this icon restores any highlighted text to its original formatting. Header formatting remains the same.

Note

This removes Squarespace Text Editor formatting, like bold or italics. To re-add this formatting, follow the next section.

Reformat the text in Squarespace

After fixing the formatting issues, you can make text stand out by adding headings, blockquotes, numbered or bulleted lists, and bold or italics formatting.

To format the text:

  1. Highlight it.
  2. Select a format type (like Heading 1 or 2) from the Formatting drop-down menu.
  3. Use the other icons in the toolbar to set other formatting, like bolding or lists.

To learn more about formatting your text, visit Formatting and styling text.

Troubleshoot special or foreign characters

Sometimes foreign or special characters appear bold or in a different font than the surrounding text. This issue may be due to browser variations in rendering special characters. If you copied and pasted this text, try typing the text directly into Squarespace.

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