Get Text from Somewhere Else

If you want to copy text from a word processor or other source outside of Illustrator, you can copy text into your clipboard, and paste it into Illustrator. To do that, you can click and drag with the Type tool to create a text box, and then select Edit Paste. When you do that, the text will be constrained within the defined text box. Or, you can simply click on the Artboard with the Type tool and select Edit Paste. With this option, the text in your clipboard will be pasted with paragraph breaks preserved. The first option, drawing a text box before you paste, preserves more formatting from the original text.

To paste text while preserving text formatting, dont select the Type tool first. Just choose the Selection tool and then select Edit Paste. When you copy text in this way, font, text size , attributes such as boldfacing, and text box width will be preserved from the original text.