Systems and methods are disclosed herein for copying inherited properties between electronic documents. An input to copy a source child element from a source application editing a source document is received. The source child element inherits a value of a property from another element. An input to paste the copied element into a destination document edited by destination application is received. The copied element is pasted into the destination document. The destination application retrieves instructions to determine a destination child value of the property and uses the instructions to determine the destination child value. The destination child value is consistent with the value which would have been determined had the copied element been pasted into the source document.