Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 5963
Copy from web: should Paste as Unformatted Text by default.
Last modified: 2008-11-05 20:27:28 UTC
Try copying some text from a webpage (even just a word or two!) into a Writer document. The tables and special characters created are horrible (who wants the <!--EndFragment--> comments?). This is really annoying. 99% of the time you just want the text, not the formatting. The default should be to paste as Unformatted Text and if you want the formatting you can do a Paste Special, not the other way around as it is now. Especially considering that the tables that are created are not easy to delete: you can't just back space over them as with anything else. The current default breaks too many fundamental user assumptions about copying and pasting. (This is my first bug: sorry if it's a duplicate, I had trouble knowing when I had searched enough with the query system as it is overly complex)
*** Issue 5747 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Thanks for posting Chuck. In general, cutting and pasting content from a web browser to OO Writer does not capture what was originally copied from the web browser. Duplicated on Win NT 4.0 SP6a, OO 1.0.1, IE 5.5.
*** Issue 6685 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 7489 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 7610 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Changing this to an enhancement request.
IMHO, the current way (to paste "in the best available format") is a good thing. Unfortunately, HTML has diferent encodings that may lead to trouble if the corresponding settings are not made under Tools-Options-Load/Save-HTML Compatibility. Since browsing from page to page of course is "dynamic" and thus leading to "wrong" settings depending on the current HTML page, the "unformatted text" may look like a good solution for some users. But only those copying only unformatted text. Even things like bold, italic, underlined get lost. And many pages use tables too. Giving the user a choice what format should be used by default is the only meaningful solution I can see. Reassigned to CJ.
*** Issue 7761 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 9410 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Workaround and a suggestion: Workaround: I have temporarily dealt with this by going to Tools | Configure | KeyboardTab and made Shift+Control+V = Edit | Paste Special. This cuts out several of the annoying steps I used to go through to paste from Mozilla, but still requires me to select "Unformatted Text" before pasting. Suggestion: It seems one of the best ways to solve this (and greatly enhance OO.org) would be to improve the Configure options so that one can assign more detailed tasks to keyboard shortcuts. Right now we can only assign main menu options to be keyboard shortcuts. If I could make SHFT_CTRL_V=PasteSpecialUnformattedText then this issue would be solved in my mind. It would also resolve another enhancement request I have for OO.org because if Configure allowed for greater detail in what can be assigned to keys then it could allow me to assign symbol insertions to shorcut-keys. I write lots of docs with symbolic logic in them and this would save me enormous amounts of time.
Reassiged to Bettina.
Please at least assign a keyboard shortcut (Brian's suggestion of Shift+Control+V sounds good) to Paste Special Unformatted Text. I use this feature constantly when assembling documents from pieces of other documents. Also, I'd suggest following MS Word's behavior in the following respect: text that is pasted as Unformatted takes on the style in effect at the insertion point.
Duplicated on GNU/Linux (I suppose this isn't a surprise). I would just like to put in another pitch for the keyboard shortcut solution. Independently of others here, I defined ctrl-shift-v to "paste special", which does save some steps, but with the amount of copying I do from the web browser, it's a constant annoyance to have the extra keystroke and dialogue box. Giving the user the option to define a paste unformatted key would be a tremendous timesaver.
I've solved the web page issue by recording a macro that automatically does paste special>unformatted text and assigned it to CTRL+Shift+V However I do miss the MS Word XP feature that allows one to select what level of information the text should be copied after it is pasted. Some kind of customization and flexibility in this would be very helpful - especially since most of the coping done from the web into a wordprocessor simply needs to be as text only.
Perhaps a user option that sets the behaviour of the plain "paste" command to formatted or unformatted would be useful too.
I have the same problem importing text form Firefox. Again, the same problem araises when importing text from another Wordprocessor in a different format. I suggest having in the context menu (right click) also the entry "Paste special". Or, even better, to allow the user to customize the context menu. Giuliano Lotta
*** Issue 25759 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Making unformatted a default (unconditionally) would break the expected user experience for most people. While it may be possible to add some smartness to the paste, depending on the source and target context, the more straightforward way to do this is to create a shortcut for the unformatted text pasting. => issue 17563 Since shortcut fullfills the need here (more-or-less), I'm marking this as duplicate. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 17563 ***
close the duplicate
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