Mike,

I notice you have a number of thoughtful responses. I’m wondering if what you’re looking for is the special paste command. Although I use special paste all the time, I haven’t done so for this purpose. Here’s how I’d try.

Open the old document in your version of Word.

Control-a to select all, control-c to copy.

Then create a new document and keep focus there.

Press control-alt-v. You will be shown a list of several format options. I choose unformatted so that the pasted copy will take your default format for newly created documents.

Apologies if I’m writing from left field.