Words running together.
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In Gutenberg, when I cut and paste blogs from Word onto my page, many words are pushed together. Example: totown (rather than ‘to town’), inresponse (rather than ‘in response). There are at least 10 to 15 instances of this in every blog. What can be done to fix it? Thank you.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi –
Thanks for getting in touch about your experience. The issue described is known to us and we’re working on it. I’ll dig up the report so you can follow along.
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Ok. I think it’s related to this issue:
https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/3549
Can you tell me which browser and version number you’re working in? As well as the operating system on the device. I will try and replicate the behavior. Do you have any browser extensions enabled?
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Have you noticed this behavior previously with the classic editor when you cut+paste from Word?
It’s not uncommon to see formatting issues when copying the text over from a different program, such as Word. Optimally, the post would be written in the WordPress.com editor and saved as a draft until it’s ready to be published.
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I’m working in the Firebox browser, version 63.0.3.
The operating system is Windows 7.
I have been using WordPress since 2015 and have never had this problem in Classic.
Thank you.
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@dettinger47 I’m looking for some examples of this issue, but they’re a bit trickier to spot without carefully reading through.
Can link to a few posts with this issue, and for each link, include a sample of the affected words with an extra word or two for context?
Or, if you’ve already fixed the issue in public posts, you’d be welcome to create a private post that shows the issue. I’m just hoping to get to look at the code to see what’s going on, copy it to my test site, and see what we can find from it.
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Hi supernovia.
The problem is, there are no blogs of mine with these problems posted. In the editing process I correct all the errors.
The problem is basically this: I write the blog in Microsoft Word. I then go to “All Posts” and click on “New.” I then cut and paste the blog from Microsoft Word onto the WordPress template. It instantly transfers on with bunches of words pushed together which otherwise read correctly on the original Word file.
Classic WordPress never did this.
Here’s an example of this using the above paragraph:
The problemis basically this: I write the blogin Microsoft Word. I then go to “All Posts” and clickon “New.” I then cut and paste the blogfrom Microsoft Word onto theWordPress template. It instantly transfers on withbunches of words pushed together whichotherwise read correctlyon the original Word file.
Notice how the words are pushed together when they weren’t in their original version. This is something that Gutenberg does.
I hope this helps.
Thank you!
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@dettinger47, did you manually remove the spaces yourself when posting to our forum, or did they automatically get removed here too?
If they aren’t automatically being removed here, please link me to a post (even if it’s a private post) where they are currently, automatically removed, and a few of the words that are pushed together, so that we can look at the code behind it.
For example:
Link: https://ettingerwriting.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/a-tribute-to-the-first-female-disciple/
Sample of words running together: “and made his way to the upstairs room”
(except in this example, those words are not running together)
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Yes. I manually removed the spaces to show you what is happening automatically on Gutenberg.
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Is this visible in the published post at all, or only in the editor? We really need to see this issue in action on a post to troubleshoot what’s happening, so please, the next time this happens, don’t fix it manually, but comment here with a link to the post so we can take a look while the error is still there.
You do mention copying from Word, though. Are you copy-pasting directly? Because that’s not recommended. Word uses a different type of code, called Rich Text Format (RTF), that doesn’t play nicely with web editors that use HTML, and copying RTF text into an HTML editor can often cause formatting errors. The editor tries its best to convert the code correctly, but it can’t always do it, and it’s also possible the Gutenberg editor handles this conversion differently than the classic editor.
For this reason we recommend using the Paste as Text button in the classic editor, or in the Classic Block in the Gutenberg editor, when pasting in content from a word processor program – that strips out any incompatible and invisible Rich Text code to make sure it doesn’t cause conflicts in the HTML version.
Can you please also try that with your next post and let us know if that makes any difference? After pasting your content in the Classic Block you should be able to convert it into regular blocks using the options menu for that block.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/visual-editor/#pasting-text
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Hello. I just did a test. Cutting and pasting the copy into a simple-text format, in this case, Notepad, worked well.
When cutting and pasting the copy from Notepad to Gutenberg, the copy was clean … no words running together. For me, this process will work just fine.
Thank you for your patience and your help.
David Ettinger
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Thanks David. I’m glad that’s working for you.
If you wouldn’t mind posting a sample (on your site) of the issue so we can fix whatever was causing the problem from Word, that would be very helpful. Don’t manually remove the spaces or fix them in any way — just leave it in its natural state so we can look at the code for what’s happening.
You can even make it a private post called “Just for WordPress.com Staff” and then your regular readers won’t have to see it.
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Hello. I did what you said and published a post in private mode called: “Just for WordPress.com Staff”.
I did no editing of it whatsoever. I simply took it from Microsoft Word as is (no typos at all), and cut and pasted it onto the Gutenberg file. You’ll see how tons of words are pushed together as a result of going from Word to Gutenberg.
I hope this will be of help to you.
Thank you for all of your help,
David Ettinger -
Thank you! Much appreciated.
I just read the whole post and was not able to see any words stuck together, actually. I did notice some oddly conspicuous line breaks though. For example, one between these two words:
a
blipThere are several other examples too, like:
A
New Appreciationand
High
School DaysAre those perchance the same words that are looking squished together for you, or are you seeing those odd line breaks as well?
And, if you’re seeing the breaks in addition to missing spaces, can you tell us a few word pairs that are stuck together?
Lastly, can you confirm what browser you are using? I’m using Chrome on a Mac.
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How strange. Besides “ablip,” I didn’t find any other errors. Even the other two you mentioned showed up fine in the published version. There were oodles of pushed-together words when I first cut a paste the copy, but apparently they didn’t push together when viewing the final published product. Also, I didn’t have any of the space breaks you had. Odd.
I’m using Firefox on a P.C.
Thanks once again.
P.S. I posted another blog this morning, and the Notepad option worked, again, for me. It’s a little extra work, but at the same time it gives me the opportunity to give my blog one more edit.
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Hi there,
Can you please try creating and viewing a new post using a different web browser like Chrome to make sure it’s not something with Firefox?
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I have experienced the same problem. I use Chrome v70. Here is a paragraph written in Word and pasted into Gutenberg. This is how it displays in the editor. However, when the post is viewed the missing space characters reappear!
Here is some rhubarb to hopefully demonstrate that spacecharacters between words are lost when pasting from Word into WordPress. Anumber of months back, pasting was frankly abysmal, and I adopted theworkaround that was mentioned in this topic, i.e. by using the paste text icon withina classic block. Pasting from Word has significantly improved since then exceptfor this current problem.
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@efpunter I searched your sites for the post and found it here.
Here’s how it looks in Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Safari (my computer) as well as several screenshots via browsershots.org.
Before it scares you: it seems to me several of those did not load your CSS
(which styles your page and makes it look like it didn’t come from 1992); I can assure you modern browsers on typical computers will display them properly, but the test system might be broken. I just don’t have a windows computer to test on.Still, even without the style loaded, none of these show the words squished together.
Can you confirm what browser you’re using? I’m wondering if it’s having trouble rendering your particular font.
And, @dettinger47, if you don’t mind confirming, do you also see squished text here?
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supernovia,
my Chrome version is now 71.0.3578.80. I am using the Independent Publisher 2 theme.
To be clear, the text which I sent yesterday is how it appears in the Gutenberg editor with various space characters having seemingly disappeared.
When the post is rendered on the website the spaces re-appear without my having done any editing on the post.
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