Can I remove Word's paste icon?

Q When I paste copied items into Microsoft Word documents, a little icon appears in the middle of the screen. I don’t want it and do not know how to delete or even disable it. What is it and what can I do about it? I use Word 2010.
Dave Gale

A This is the Paste Options box and it affects all recent versions of Word. It offers quick access to various conditions that can be applied to the content just pasted, including stripping out all the formatting or keeping the formatting of the original document.

Regardless, it can indeed be annoying but it’s also easy to switch off. In Word 2010, click File and choose Options. In the Word Options dialogue box, click Advanced in the left-hand pane then scroll down to find the Cut, copy, and paste section. Click to remove the tick from the ‘Show Paste Options button when content is pasted’ box and then click OK.

As an aid to other readers, to achieve the same in earlier versions of Word, select Options from the Tools menu, choose the Edit tab then click to remove the tick from the box labelled ‘Show Paste Options button’.