When I cut and past into Writer, the text shows up blank by default, somehow. I always have to then go select Black (or whatever color) to make the pasted material appear.
Is there a solution to this? Why does the pasted material not show in the same color as the source?
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V, or Menubar\Edit\Paste Special\Paste Unformatted Text
Besides, it is much easy for an user to produce unformatted text in the level of operating system, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V is too hard to press.
You can also do this with the context menu.
Is there a preference or setting I can change to solve this problem rather than fixing it after the fact after each occurrence.
This strikes me as an odd bug. Certainly not a feature!!
This is yet another question, not a solution to your initial problem. Please transfer into a comment in order not to mislead other users.
While you’re at it, mention the source of your copied text. What you describe is a consequence of some already formatted text (by which application or service?) containing directives which are misinterpreted by Writer (unknown or really foreign format). Don’t forget OS name, LO version and save format.