Interesting.
so if Im comprehending correctly, the wdPasteText keyword not only strips all of the original formatting (font, bold, etc) but also removes all but the final paragraph mark, thereby consolidating the selection into a single paragraph?

If the selection spans several paragraphs, do they remain distinct because of the double-mark or become merged into a single one?

That is basically correct. Although all font & paragraph formatting is removed, other than a final paragraph break, no characters are deleted. Hence tabs, non-terminating paragraph breaks, & line-breaks in the copied data are output (the latter are converted to paragraph breaks). End-of-cell markers in copied tables are converted to tabs when pasted as unformatted text. If the copied data include two or more paragraph breaks at the end, only the final one is deleted.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]