In Word XP (or Word 2002) the Paste Options Button appears after you paste text into a Word document. Clicking on the Paste Options Button reveals the option Match Destination Formatting. This option is extremely useful when you are copying text (with bold and italics) from a web page and pasting into Word. This feature allows you to separate extensive passages of textual content from the HTML markup "by hand" without losing basic formatting (bold and italics).

For more information on the Paste Options Button please see MS KB article Q284752 ("WD2002: How to Use the Paste Options Button When Pasting into a Bulleted or Numbered List") at:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q284752

For Word 2000 versions we are left with the Paste Special command. This can strip all of the typographic information out of the pasted text or completely copies the formatting (overwriting any preexisting formatting already in the Word Document).