Was the ‘Power Paste’ functionality recently removed from the Classic Editor?
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Up until recently (sometime in late January or in February, IIRC), I was able to copy/paste content written in Microsoft Word (either .doc or .docx) directly into the Classic Editor and it would retain all of its Word formatting: spacing, bold, and italics. However, that no longer happens.
If I copy/paste from Word, the Classic editor will retain bold and italics but it will make the spacing completely FUBAR. There will be huge blocks of text where there were multiple paragraphs and individual lines in the Word document. Because my posts are often long, this would be a nightmare to separate again within the Editor.
I discovered that if instead of pasting the Word doc directly into the Classic Editor, I first paste it into Notepad (thus convering it to plain text), copy THAT, and then paste that into the Classic Editor, the editor does retain all of my paragraph breaks and line spacing. However, the price paid is that I lose all italics and bolding. (This is classic Pick Your Poison.)
I have a Personal Plan and so my Classic Editor is not the plug-in version.
A bit of research informs me that the feature of Classic Editor that allows a clean and accurate paste from a Word document is called ‘Power Paste.’ It seems to me that the Power Paste must have been part of the WordPress.com flavor of the Classic Editor in order to allow my 10 years of copy-pasting things from Word to always work perfectly. But now it no longer does. Was PowerPaste been removed from Classic Editor recently? If so, can you please put it back?
p.s. I tried saving documents in several formats, including .RTF, to see if Classic Editor would retain the spacing as a paste in one but not the others. Nope. The only format that retained the original spacing was Plain Text, but of course that killed all the bolds and italics.
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Adding this in order to add tags. For some reason the system did not give me that option in my original post, but added a “payment” tag which has nothing to do with my question.
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I don’t think I’ve ever heard of “Power Paste”?
Was it a button you clicked on in the Classic Editor toolbar before pasting your copied Word content? If so, which button do you mean?
If you see something different in your Classic Editor toolbar, you can share a screenshot by following this guide https://wordpress.com/support/make-a-screenshot/
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Sorry, I should have been more clear (was directing my Q to the tech staff/core team). The Classic Editor is just another front-end name for TinyMCE, and an optional feature that can be integrated into the TinyMCE/”Classic Editor” is called PowerPaste. The TinyMCE site page about PowerPaste shows the difference that can occur with and without having the PowerPaste option in the editor itself:
https://www.tiny.cloud/tinymce/features/powerpaste/
PowerPaste is not something that can be seen, accessed, or controlled by the end user (the WordPresss blogger/customer). It’s under the control – as far as whether or not it’s present, or whether it’s working properly – of whatever team at WordPress.com is tasked with maintaining or making changes to the Classic Editor itself.
Because pasting from Word has always worked perfectly in the past (as shown in the “with PowerPaste” example in the TinyMCE link above) but is behaving badly now, makes me wonder whether (a) the WP.com developers removed PowerPaste from ‘our’ Classic Editor, or (b) made some other change(s) to the Editor that is messing with the PowerPaste that is still there. I suspect that it’s more likely to be (b), because there’d be no logical reason to assume that people don’t paste things from Word, Excel, Gdoc, etc.
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For 20 years WordPress.com have always encouraged users to type directly into posts/pages rather than copy/paste Word. At the end of the day, I find typing words takes the same amount of time wherever I am typing them.
Microsoft Word is a fine word processor for producing documents to be shared or printed, with a wealth of print-based options for indexing, and producing table of contents. As a web publishing tool, however, it is a little less than ideal and produces very messy HTML. The same applies when using Google Docs, OpenOffice, or other word processors. Because of this, we strongly encourage our users -
As @themagicrobot said, WordPress.com has always encouraged users to *avoid* copying/pasting from any word processing software into the Editor because of the additional code it adds. https://wordpress.com/support/editors/classic-editor-guide/#pasting-text
There are offline editors that play nicer with WordPress.com https://wordpress.com/support/offline-editing/ including the official WordPress apps https://wordpress.com/support/apps/
Granted that none of this answers your question about the Power Paste, so I’ve added the MODLOOK tag for Staff attention.
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It’s not a question of ‘time’, it’s a question of individual workflow – and also, it’s wrong to assume that every person in the world (or even just in the USA) has access to the internet 100% of the time. There were quite a few years when I only had internet access while I was at work, and obviously one cannot access WordPress.com offline. It’s a website, not a desktop program like a photo or video editor. Offline writing also isn’t subject to the vagaries of a spotty internet connection or an ethernet card that has a mind of its own.
A site like mine that requires a lot of ongoing (daily) research in order to produce every individual post isn’t amenable to just logging into WordPress and dashing off something on the fly. That’s not what it’s about. I spend a ridiculous amount of time gathering research material from multiple sources and people, co-ordinating it with information I already have in my notes, prior posts, new and old images, e-mails, phone call transcripts, PDFs, digital scans, and various hardcopies, before I even begin to pull it all together and start write an intelligible and accurate post that won’t be as boring to read as watching paint dry. Before retirement, I worked in publishing on both sides of the fence: As a freelance writer, and also as a production editor for scientific journals. Most of the posts on my site are long, with tons of text and many internal and external links. A post that takes me perhaps 10 minutes to actually paste into the Classic Editor, insert my already-edited images, and hit the PUBLISH button has typically taken me weeks or months to get to that final Word doc version, through multiple drafts and revisions. It’s not like writing “what I did on my summer vacation” (not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just not what I do.)
My point in querying the existence of PowerPaste in the WP Classic Editor is that (despite what the linked page says) all of my Word text formatting used to paste cleanly and accurately into the CE, until very recently. Occasionally I might need to tweak an extra line space but that was rare. I never needed to paste as plain text before, and we are talking about 10 years of always pasting from Word. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…
I did find very early on (in 2015) that WordPress.com does not play quite as nicely with Firefox – my default browser – as it does with Opera (which is Chromium-based) and so I only use Opera for uploading, and for the two or three other sites that work less well with Firefox. I refuse to use Chrome or Edge for anything.
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@2020testjj , Yes, I am aware of the JetPack mobile app but unfortunately that’s not an option for me. Because of vision challenges and arthritis, I need to work at a desktop computer with a large monitor and a keyboard (and take frequent breaks). I have a smartphone but can only use it for calls and for texting using Dictation.
I noticed that your second link mentions ‘Other editing options’ and the list includes Microsoft Word, and that link goes to a page titled Blogging with Word. However, I have Office 2024, which is not on the list of Word Versions suppported. My previous computer had Office 2016 which is on the list but I no longer have that machine .
I will look into Open Live Writer, which I had not heard of before. If it is compatible with a WordPress plan that does not support plug-ins (mine is a Personal plan, and thus doesn’t), that might be an option. A cursory look indicates that a user “needs to have a blog account in order to install it (LiveWriter)” so I’m not sure how that would actually work. That is probably a subject for a different thread here, but I will do a search for LiveWriter first. ;-)
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Hm, so the MODLOOK tag I added for Staff attention disappeared along with the MS Word tags which connects this thread to other forum threads on this topic. Thanks for leaving them there.
@thecybisarchive FWIW I’ve only ever used Firefox (stable version) on WordPress.com (without any issue BTW) and it is one of the supported browsers.
Let’s now wait for staff to answer your question about the Power Paste without adding further replies here as that pushes your topic down in the queue. Cheers.
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@2020testjj , just tried DL’ing it in Firefox and got a WordPress 502 error. Tried the same thing in Opera; same error. Refreshing didn’t help. So, I don’t know what’s going on with that.
I did download Open Live Writer to see what that’s like. Definitely a stripped-down old-school Word clone, with very limited functionality on the user end. For example, there’s no way to set a default font size other than preset Calibri 11, and Print View (centered text workspace) isn’t available. Would like to try the WP desktop app if I can get it to download at some point. Supposedly 502 is a Bad Gateway error so I don’t know if the bottleneck is on my end or theirs. Maybe they use a different gateway for downloads vs user uploading; I’ll try again later, or tomorrow.
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Okay, two updates:
(1) I just discovered that the WordPress Desktop App contains the Block Editor by default (as per other sources); no mention of the Classic Editor being an option. If it only installs on a desktop as a Block Editor (which I’m obviously avoiding), then it wouldn’t be of any use to me.
(2) Digging around in Word itself, I discovered a discrepancy in the Advanced Options; specifically in the Cut, Copy and Paste section. The first two ‘paste’ settings (within documents and between documents) are set to Keep Source Formatting by default. The third (Pasting between documents when style definitions conflict) is Use Destination Styles by default BUT I have always changed that to Keep Source Formatting whenever installing Microsoft Office. However, when I checked it just now, that third field had been reset (probably by one of the recent Windows 11 Updates) to the default. I changed it back to Keep Source Formatting, wrote a quick test document with multiple paragraphs and typical line breaks, and pasted that directly into the Classic Editor. Voila! My paragraph and line breaks no longer ran together. The ‘Keep Source Formatting’ is that third Paste function is necessary to preserve line/paragraph breaks when pasting from a Word document into the Classic Editor. The recent change wasn’t in the Classic Editor, it was in Word (I hate when Windows updates change stuff arbitrarily.)
Marking this as resolved, but if others are having problems with formatting not being preserved when pasting directly from Word, I suggest doing this within Word (Office 2024, Windows 11):
File -> Options -> Advanced -> Cut, Copy and Paste -> Pasting between documents when style definitions conflict -> change “Use Destinations Styles (default)” to “Keep Source Formatting”
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Ignore the spam reply above. Seems to be pernicious lately with “helpful” replies along with a bit of spam. :/
Thanks for coming back and letting us know that this was a MS Word issue and not the WordPress editor.
I’d still recommend using an offline editor. Here’s a bunch of others (thanks Jeremy!) that didn’t make that list in the offline support guide I linked to earlier (And YMMV/NAYY):
- The Google docs to WordPress browser extension, for example.
- The WordLand editor that was just made public a few days ago.
- StackEdit for Markdown fans. (might not be relevant for you)
- Ulysses for Apple users. (paid-and might not be relevant for you)
- iAWriter for minimalist / focused writers. (paid)
Thanks also for posting about the Desktop app download problem. I’m getting this when I try to download
I’m leaving the MODLOOK tag here so Staff are informed of both the spam reply above and the download issue.
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Hi folks! Thanks for the heads up on spam, and @thecybisarchive I’m glad you were able to sort out that paste thing. I’d never heard of it and hadn’t seen any recent activity on the plugin, so I was a bit stumped!
I’m not currently getting 502s; were those on the “Windows” app download specifically, or on the desktop page in general at https://apps.wordpress.com/desktop/ ?
Also I do want to clarify one thing: while the Jetpack mobile apps can work offline, the desktop apps require an internet connection. So it’s useful for focus and speed but not for offline work. I hope that helps!
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@supernovia , the 502s last night/early this morning were on the desktop page if either of the blue “windows” buttons were clicked in order to download. However, I tested it just now and did not get a 502; so it appears to have been a temporary thing.
Many thanks for clarifying that only the mobile apps can work offline for composition. I had done a bit of Googling while the 502s were active, and found a few threads on Reddit and elsewhere asking about the WordPress Desktop App functionality offline; replies were mixed as to whether or not it worked in that way (compose offline but needing a connection to actually upload to the blog) but the dates of the threads varied also.
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Hey @supernovia, :) The desktop download link worked for me now (of course). Thanks for the clarifications, too.
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Thanks both of you, @thecybisarchive & @2020testjj. And yeah, 502s will usually be a temporary thing, or if they’re even slightly consistent I want to say we get alerts so someone can fix it. Perhaps they already did. I’m glad it’s working now!
replies were mixed as to whether or not it worked in that way (compose offline but needing a connection to actually upload to the blog) but the dates of the threads varied also.
Ah, so it goes. But yeah, I can confirm the desktop app, as it is designed for now, will not work offline.
There is the Studio desktop app, too, and I wonder if folks were thinking of that one, but I wouldn’t recommend it for content management since it’s more for custom development.
Anyway. I’m glad you were able to sort out the Power Paste thing! Cheers!
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Out of curiosity, I downloaded the Desktop app and discovered that basically it is simply a stand-alone (meaning browser-independent) portal into my WordPress account. Which is why it is not usable offline: It is a portal, rather than containing the full data-set of my WordPress account. Now it all makes sense. ;-)
Having it as a stand-alone app might actually work for me in terms of composing the final text in the same form as I do it in Word, which is to insert text ‘flags’ in every spot that I want to place an image, if I do it in one sitting rather than having to come back to it over multiple days or weeks. I could then copy/paste all of that text from the Classic Editor into a blank Word document, which would have the same result as my current workflow which is to do it the other way around. Because I don’t want any images in the Word document, I’d then go back into the WordPress Desktop and insert each one at the appropriate flagged location before uploading. I would end up with the same text-only Word doc backup as I do now, and then for editing existing posts I would keep the same workflow (change in Word doc first -> duplicate the change after logging in to WP).
I like the idea of keeping my WordPress access separate from either browser, via a direct connection through Windows. I have a slew of add-ons in Firefox in order to block things (scripts, ads, popups, trackers, etc) and if nothing else, the separate app eliminates accidental tab closings if I happen to have a half dozen of them open in the browser at once, lol.
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It really is somewhat of a portal (in fact they call it a “wrapper” app) but it can be nice to have it outside the normal browser for a number of reasons exactly like the ones you mentioned!
The separate app eliminates accidental tab closings if I happen to have a half dozen of them open in the browser at once, lol.
You sound like me; I’ve often got half a dozen tabs open …and that’s just in each window! Haha. Anyway I’m glad to hear it’s a good solution for you!
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Just popping in to update this after doing some live testing; the fix that I thought had solved the problem (changing the default Paste settings) has apparently NOT solved it. In retrospect, I see that I should have pasted a longer document as the test, instead of dashing off only a few lines. When a longer (full) document was pasted, the problem still existed.
The good news is that the WordPress team is looking into this and also into a possibly-related result that occurs when pasting into the Block Editor from Word.
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