LyX ⇒ How to maintain italics when pasting text from elsewhere?

[insipidtoast]

I need to copy and paste documents that I have alread written in word. Many of the words are italicized throughout the various documents.

When I copy the documents and then paste them into Lyx the italics are gone and those words just appear as normal text.

Is there a command I can enter into the preamble in order to preserve italics from pasted words?

[scottkosty]

I need to copy and paste documents that I have alread written in word. Many of the words are italicized throughout the various documents.

When I copy the documents and then paste them into Lyx the italics are gone and those words just appear as normal text.

I am not aware of any way to do this. There is a way to do the "opposite" (turn formatted text into unformatted text):
Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text

This might make for a nice feature request:
http://www.lyx.org/trac
(it's very easy to register and post)

Is there a command I can enter into the preamble in order to preserve italics from pasted words?

Creative thinking! This is a good place to stop and ask yourself "is this a LaTeX issue or a LyX issue?" The answer is that it's a LyX issue. The LaTeX preamble is for LaTeX. The closest thing for LyX for what the LaTeX preamble is to LaTeX is Document Settings > Local Layout.

[insipidtoast]

I guess I should mention for anyone else who comes across this thread, that while italics are not maintained. You can highlight the text and hit ctrl+e to make italics.

That's quicker than entering code or selecting italics from the drop down menu.