3 ms·

Yeah, rich-text copy and paste is pretty awful. The default in almost all cases should be "paste without formatting", but instead you have to go out of your way

Yeah, rich-text copy and paste is pretty awful. The default in almost all cases should be "paste without formatting", but instead you have to go out of your way to exclude formatting.

usrbinbash 4y ago
I was so happy when I figured that chrome based browsers now have a "Paste as plain text" functionality. I receive technical problem descriptions in (of course) HTML email formats, and copy pasting them into the archive systems web interface (which ofc is also rich text based) always was a PITA.
wizofaus 4y ago
This has been bugging me more and more recently - the assumption that if I've copied a few words from one app then pasted it into another it means I want to preserve all the formatting is wrong 99% of the time, yet there are now popular web-based apps (Confluence being one example from memory) that don't even support "paste as plain text". Actually what I typically want is "smart paste" which implies preserving changes in the formatting, and supporting e.g. hyperlinks etc., but ignoring whatever formatting attributes happened to be active at the beginning of the selection. But I'd rather lose support for rich text paste entirely over the situation we have now.
- soheil 4y ago
  Agreed. I typically copy whatever text and paste it in the address bar and copy it again to lose the formatting. It also loses any line breaks but still worth it.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I keep a simple text editor open to accomplish that with. You keep line breaks that way.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      That's my usual trick too but it's a terrible hack. Windows in general (I don't think MacOS is better) is crying out for more sophisticated built-in clipboard support, including supporting multiple active items (3's probably sufficient), and better conversion/formatting options (even to the point of automatic OCR etc.).
- tekchip 4y ago
  Ctrl+shift+v works most places to paste without formatting.

Yeah, rich-text copy and paste is pretty awful. The default in almost all cases should be "paste without formatting", but instead you have to go out of your way to exclude formatting.

usrbinbash 4y ago

I was so happy when I figured that chrome based browsers now have a "Paste as plain text" functionality. I receive technical problem descriptions in (of course) HTML email formats, and copy pasting them into the archive systems web interface (which ofc is also rich text based) always was a PITA.

wizofaus 4y ago

This has been bugging me more and more recently - the assumption that if I've copied a few words from one app then pasted it into another it means I want to preserve all the formatting is wrong 99% of the time, yet there are now popular web-based apps (Confluence being one example from memory) that don't even support "paste as plain text". Actually what I typically want is "smart paste" which implies preserving changes in the formatting, and supporting e.g. hyperlinks etc., but ignoring whatever formatting attributes happened to be active at the beginning of the selection. But I'd rather lose support for rich text paste entirely over the situation we have now.

soheil 4y ago
Agreed. I typically copy whatever text and paste it in the address bar and copy it again to lose the formatting. It also loses any line breaks but still worth it.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I keep a simple text editor open to accomplish that with. You keep line breaks that way.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    That's my usual trick too but it's a terrible hack. Windows in general (I don't think MacOS is better) is crying out for more sophisticated built-in clipboard support, including supporting multiple active items (3's probably sufficient), and better conversion/formatting options (even to the point of automatic OCR etc.).
tekchip 4y ago
Ctrl+shift+v works most places to paste without formatting.