[LH4021] BETA 31 Copy from Scrivener to Word Processor doesn't paste format

andrewbond · December 16, 2019, 4:36pm

I attempted to copy/paste from a Scrivener document to a document in my Word Processor (WPS) and it would not paste unless I pasted as text only. Attempting to paste with formatting resulting in nothing: no text, no spaces. When I attempted the same action in Open Office, I get the error: Requested Clipboard format is not available.

This is new in 2.90.31. In 2.90.30 and earlier it has always worked.

Sparrowhawk · December 16, 2019, 5:58pm

Which WPS are you using as your main (I’m assuming LibreOffice)? My results were as follows:

Pasted with formatting in Word (both client and cloud versions)
Pasted text but without formatting in Google Docs

I can test LibreOffice when I get home, but this may end up being a problem with Linux (since they have their own clipboard), which is not officially supported.

In addition to not supporting Linux, OOO is no longer the dominant WPS on Linux, so that will almost certainly not be addressed.

andrewbond · December 16, 2019, 7:31pm

No, this is in WPS Office (wps.com).

I realize that LibreOffice is dominant, but their spreadsheet doesn’t handle dates prior to 1/1/1900. OpenOffice is the ONLY spreadsheet that I’ve found that does.

The question is why this has changed from 1.90.30.

thePhilosoraptor · December 18, 2019, 1:20am

This has been filed. Thanks.

Sparrowhawk · December 21, 2019, 2:37am

Aaahh, my bad, I assumed WPS was just “word processing software” not a specific one. My bad.

andrewbond · December 23, 2019, 11:20pm

The bug still exists in 2.90.32.

andrewbond · January 9, 2020, 2:51am

The bug persists in Beta 33.

devinganger · January 9, 2020, 3:30am

If the bug number assigned in the header (in this case LH4021) does not appear as “fixed” in a new beta version’s release notes, it is safe to assume it hasn’t been fixed and that you don’t need to update the forum to say that it hasn’t been fixed. You only need to update it if there is new behavior, new information, or if they say there is a fix and you are still seeing broken behavior.

andrewbond · February 13, 2020, 5:09pm

Is there any update on this bug?

JJSlote · February 13, 2020, 7:02pm

Version 2.9.0.38 definitely copies your selection, with formatting, to the Windows HTML clipboard. We can confirm this by pasting the copied selection into the BlueGriffon HTML editor and viewing source, or by pasting into a Thunderbird editing pane. Scrivener does not appear to populate the Rich Text clipboard on copy, and some word processors may still rely upon or prioritize the RTF, thence falling back upon the plain text clipboard rendition.

Note though that the HTML Scrivener copies out is QT’s quirky vernacular. Boldface text, for the most conspicuous example, is copied out as:

If we paste a Scriv-formatted clip into MS OneNote, that program won’t recognize the bold. But it will recognize QT/Scriv’s HTML italic:

I use an AutoHotkey script to clean up Scriv’s HTML as captured via Copy Special, and have done so for years. At very least I would recommend the developers filter “font-weight:600” into “font-weight:bold” to put a more widely compatible HTML rendition onto the clipboard.

Cheers - Jerome

andrewbond · February 14, 2020, 5:19am

Word processors like LibreOffice? Exactly my point. Not everyone uses Word. I know we end up being forced to buy Windows when we buy our laptops, but I don’t want to be forced to pay for their Office Suite – or do a double copy/ paste to the cloud and back to the word processor of my choice.
RTF is nearly universal. Scrivener, in earlier betas, had no trouble pasting to LibreOffice.

JJSlote · February 14, 2020, 10:16am

OK, I tried LibreOffice 6.1.1.2. Pasting from Scrivener directly into LibreOffice Calc does not carry formatting. But pasting into LibreOffice Writer certainly does, including the bold. And copying on from Writer will carry the formatting into LibreOffice Calc, and as well into WordPad and Jarte, both of which use the Windows Rich Text Control.

So I’d suggest you try a Writer window as a conversion intermediary for clipping between Scrivener and the WPS spreadsheet. I suspect the WPS word processor will work as well. Scrivener does copy out with formatting, but via the HTML clipboard rather then the RTF. I don’t think we can call that a bug.

Cheers – Jerome

tiho_d · February 14, 2020, 1:45pm

This has been implemented and will be available in the next Beta 39 update.

Frank_Ball · April 23, 2020, 11:36am

I just tried to post directly from Scrivener to Wordpress, and the italics was lost. I had to paste it to Word, then copy it from Word to Wordpress. Years ago, back in the 1.0 days, I communicated with someone at Scrivener and was told that Word handled the copying differently. I don’t remember the technical jargon. But I was told that Scrivener would eventually have the same capability. From what I can see, it hasn’t happened yet.

JJSlote · April 23, 2020, 7:33pm

By my tests, bold and italics are retained, and Scrivener’s presentational HTML now pastes very cleanly into WordPress, both via the block editor and the classic TinyMCE editor. The beta team has wrapped the span tags described above with traditional strong and em tags that WordPress recognizes.

But developers please note: I’m not seeing the same on Copy Special > Copy as HTML . So Frank if on the outside chance you’re using that command and pasting into the WordPress editor’s HTML Source window, you can expect to lose some formatting. Just an oversight I’m sure, but an inconsistency well worth repairing.

Other findings: Bold is not retained when pasting from Scrivener into OneNote, probably because the outer strong tag is overridden by the inner span tag. And Scriv’s simulacrum of Block Quote will not be recognized as such by WordPress. That one still requires an HTML string conversion to bring across. Any chance a Block Quote substitution code could be added to Format > Paragraph > HTML Header Level?

Rgds - Jerome

Frank_Ball · April 25, 2020, 9:59am

I use Ctrl-C to copy from Scrivener and Ctrl-V to paste to Wordpress. When I do that with the latest beta release, italics and bold face are lost. When I use the same action when copying from Scrivener to Microsoft Word, the formatting is preserved. Then I can press Ctrl-C in Word and Ctrl-V in Wordpress, and I’ve got the Scrivener formatting ported over. So that’s what I’ve been doing for several years. I just think that’s one area in which Scrivener should be as good as Word.

JJSlote · April 25, 2020, 1:24pm

Frank, I’m guessing then that your WordPress install is more than a bit outdated. Legacy WordPress renditions of TinyMCE, the “classic” editor subsystem, were much more tolerant of inline HTML styling than are today’s WordPress editors.

We can walk through a demo of our own without a CMS account. Via OpenSourceCMS.com:

First we’ll copy out a paragraph from The Binder, a doc in the Scrivener tutorial:

Then we’ll paste it into a page in the public demo installation of WordPress on OpenSourceCMS:

Bold and italics are rendered, and by viewing HTML source we can see that the detailed inline styling has been removed, and and retained:

By contrast, the unfiltered clip from Scrivener has an HTML source something like this, via BlueGriffon:

3. Whenever you delete a document, it ends up in the Trash folder. Documents are not deleted forever until you select Empty Trash… from the Project menu.

Trust, you don’t want this in your WordPress page. But you may want detailed formatting retained in your Epub, and you’re sure to want it when copying within Scrivener. So Scrivener gives us a kitchen sink clipboard and if the destination app can’t filter it, we may have to deploy a filter in between. As for OneNote still. But not for an up-to-date WordPress.

This has been a consequential thread. Thanks to Lee and Tiho for taking care of the issues raised here, and thank you so much to Andrew for being the squeaky wheel. Sometimes that’s what it takes.

Cheers - Jerome

JJSlote · April 26, 2020, 2:13pm

Update. My bad surmise, Frank. Your WordPress installation is almost certainly fine. There’s something else going on and still a problem on the Scrivener side.

The successful copy and paste to WordPress shown above, with bold and italics retained, was via the Firefox browser. The Chromium-based browsers, Chrome and Edge, do not recognize the Scrivener pasteboard as a valid HTML pasteboard, and hence paste in as plain text. So they don’t deliver the needed formatting to WordPress.

We’ll need some time to figure this out, but given the popularity of the Chromium browsers, this most likely needs a fix.

Rgds - Jerome