How can I get paste to include links but not character formatting.
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Formerly, when I copied a passage and pasted it into my blog, almost all character formatting was stripped out, though italics were preserved, as were paragraphs, blockquotes, numbered lists, bulleted lists, and — very important — links.
You have now changed the visual editor so that a paste brings across *everything*—character formatting that I do not want. You do now offer a “paste text” option, but that strips out links.
Can’t we get back the intelligent paste we had before?
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There were some recent changes to the Visual Editor including the addition of the “Paste as Text” button you mention. You can read more about those changes here:
Currently, you are correct. There isn’t a way to paste large chunks of text from other blogs or websites and carry over just the links (no other text formatting like bold, italics, etc).
We’re collecting feedback on the new editor here:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/posting-of-word-files-with-tables?replies=6
If you have additional thoughts, we would love to hear them. It just helps to keep all of the feedback in one place for future iterations!
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Thank you very much for your response. I would like a button along the lines of “Paste as Text” but that leaves some HTML tags in place—specifically:
strong
b
em
i
links
blockquote
ul
ol
li
paragraphsIf those are preserved, then the pasted text is either useful immediately, or is easily adjusted if needed. Stripping out everything seems almost passive-aggressive. :)
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When I paste from another blog post, many of those tags are maintained. For example, I can copy and paste text that maintains blockquote, bold, and links. However, there isn’t an option to only bring across links and remove all other formatting. Regular pasting should bring across most of the tags you mention. Pasting as text won’t bring across any. You’re looking for a hybrid that merges the two (brings across links without formatting). Is that correct?
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The problem is that regular pasting brings across not only blockquote, bold, and links, but also a TON of character formatting. If you copy and paste a paragraph from, say, The Intercept or the NY Times and look in the text editor at what you pasted, you’ll see lines and lines of character formatting. Formerly that HTML was stripped out in the regular paste in the visual editor. I really am having problems with the revised editor. It’s pretty much impossible to use—what I normally do is paste the passage in the text editor or use the paste-as-text button, then painfully go through and put in the links.
I’m to the point now where I’m looking at other blogging platforms. I moved from Blogger to WordPress when Blogger went downhill, so I suppose I could move again. But I would rather stick with WordPress.
What’s so odd is that it was working fine, and then it was downgraded substantially.
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Hi there!
Now, I understand a bit more. Yes, the resulting pasted text will largely depend on the formatting of the copied text. It’s typically easier to paste in plain text and then re-add the links if necessary. The NY Times for example uses custom ID’s and classes that appear when you paste their text. The main option for text like that is to either manually correct the text after pasting or paste as plain text and re-edit.
For reference, the changes to the editor were part of a much larger upgrade of WordPress (both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress at WordPress.org). The changes you’re mentioning are in regards to TinyMCE, the tool that powers much of the editor. For more information on this change as part of the WordPress project, see:
However, if you have specific feedback, you’re welcome to post it here for consideration for future improvements:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/posting-of-word-files-with-tables?replies=6
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From a user perspective, I had a tool that worked very well that now does not work at all. I would guess that you have not had to manually strip out the HTML (time consuming, tedious, and error-prone) or paste as plain text and then put back italics, boldface, blockquotes, links, and so on (time-consuming and tedious).
My wife is a user-interaction designer. She stuck with Blogspot after I left, and Google has done quite a bit with it since. In particular, the Blogspot/Blogger visual editor has a “Remove formatting” button that does the sort of intelligent removal I have been describing: all HTML stripped out except for the basics as listed above. She tells me that this button is simply an add-in: independent software widget that Blogspot kindly put into their editor.
The WordPress editor, in contrast, is really unusable at this point, so far as copy and paste is concerned. I’m thinking maybe I should return to Blogspot. I still have my old blog there.
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Hi!
I completely understand your frustration. We’re listening to the feedback from everyone and planning out future iterations of the Visual editor. We certainly don’t want you to have to change blogging platforms. We’re continually making improvements to the editor based on the feedback here:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/posting-of-word-files-with-tables?replies=6
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Thanks. I did post there, with a strong recommendation that you guys look at the Blogger/Blogspot visual editor and see how that “paste as text” works. My wife uses that, and it works perfectly fine. She thinks it’s a third-party widget, so perhaps WordPress could plug it into its editor.
One thing that strikes me: It seems very much as if no usability testing were done on the program before it was implemented. Don’t you guys have user-experience specialists who will do usability testing to head off these problems? (My wife is a user-interaction designer for Stanford University, and they do a LOT of usability testing before they finalize a design.)
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Hi!
We do have a full team of UI designers that are hard at work testing every element and feature that we implement. I can assure you that a lot of effort and time went into testing the features before implementing them into WordPress.com!
We definitely appreciate your feedback and will look to potentially implement the suggestions in future iterations.
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Now that I’m using the passive-aggressive “Paste as Text” option, I find another error. When I click the option to activate it, I get this message:
Paste is now in plain text mode. Contents will now be pasted as plain text until you toggle this option off.
This is simply untrue. Every time I start a new post I have to click the option again, because it turns itself off. Thus it adds a click to make a new post:
1. click “new post”
2. click “paste as text”That second step, for every post, is not only somewhat irritating, it shows the comment to be untrue. Misleading your users is a bad idea.
I wonder at the thoroughness of the usability testing of this feature. Based on the complaints I’m seeing, you must have selected non-representative users to serve as test subjects. Perhaps the profile of typical users might be reviewed.
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Hi!
The buttons and options in the Visual editor are only effective for the current post. If you click to add a new post, you will need to re-enable the “Paste as Text” option. It functions similarly to other options like bold or italic, which don’t carry over from post to post. This is referenced in the support doc found here:
If you would like to avoid having to click the “Paste as Text” button, you could always use the keyboard shortcut to paste as plain text: Cmd + Shift + V.
Please let me know if you need anything else!
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Thanks for the keyboard paste-as-text combination. I didn’t know that.
I may have been unclear: the message that pops up when you click the past-as-text option is false. It specifically states that paste-as-text will remain in effect until the button is pushed again. I now understand that the message is untrue, but maybe it would be good to have a message that is true. E.g.:
Paste in this post is now in plain text mode. Contents will now be pasted as plain text until you toggle this option off or start a new post.
I feel as though I am doing a certain amount of usability testing. :)
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Hi!
I understand; the Paste as Text button “resets” back to “off” when you start a new post or page, regardless of whether you have toggled the option on or off on previous posts/pages. This is currently behaving like other buttons in our Visual editor. So, for example, if you click bold in a post, text will be bolded until you toggle the option off. However, if you move to a new post, the bold option will automatically be “off” by default.
I’ll definitely keep an eye on the forums, see if this is a recurring confusion, and adjust the notification if necessary!
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Thanks. May I point out that “bold” and “italic” and the like do not have messages stating that the option remains in effect until the button is toggled.
My point, which perhaps got lost, is that for paste-as-text a message DOES appear, and the message as now phrased is simply false. I’m not really talking about how other buttons (which lack messages) work, I’m talking about the message for this button. The message is untrue.
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I understand your point. We’ve added a little blurb to the support document regarding this. We don’t have plans to revamp the notification at the moment, but I’ll keep an eye out to see if this is a common error and will adjust the notification accordingly. We appreciate your input!
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I guess I give up. WordPress took a function that was working quite well—copy and paste of HTML text, stripping out most character formatting but leaving in bold, italics, links, blockquotes, and numbered and bulleted lists. So far as I could I could tell, everyone was happy with this. Then without notice (at least that I saw), the action was changed and the user was offered only two options: either ALL HTML formatting or NO HTML formatting.
This is NOT a service to the user. It would have been better to look at user needs and user tasks and not simply take the course that is easiest to program. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. Not only has a formerly easy task become laborious and error-prone because of the many steps, which in itself is a disappointment, the attitude of WordPress—which might be summarized as “Tough luck: that’s the way it’s going to be”—is disappointing. I like companies that are more responsive to customer needs.
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