Formatting in a handout is limited to whatever the Roll20 formatting allows, or in cases of copy and paste, whatever HTML and inline CSS were included. If you want to enforce Roll20 tools, hold down shift while pasting, or paste the text into a plain text editor and copy that. You will get unformatted text that will take the Roll20 formatting buttons correctly. If you want ultimate control, as a pro user, you can take advantage of Stephen S.'s Markdown script .