The Mezzanine

I'm preeeeeeeetty sure there's an option on Word to get rid of formatting. It wouldn't solve everything, but it might get rid of one stage of the process. I'll let you know if I encounter it.

This is what I've found, MSWord 2010: http://i48.tinypic.com/20shm2w.png
Something similar probably exists in earlier versions. Play around with your document preferences and settings?

More tricks:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-to-strip-formatting-from-text-in-ms-word-2007/
http://www.timeatlas.com/5_minute_tips/general/clearing_format_codes_in_microsoft_word

ctrl+spacebar seems to work for me!