I have a project that is suddenly unable to reliably copy/paste text containing certain formatting. It instead pastes as plain text, as though I was using the Paste and Match Style option (which I’m not.) It seems to be limited to this one project, but also copied from this project into another one, which otherwise works fine.
Have a look.
Update.
At first I thought what I was seeing might be limited to one particular project and/or the most recent version of Scrivener. It is not.
I have now uninstalled and reinstalled at least three different versions of Scriv (including the two most recent), trying to find some pattern. Most recently, I installed 1.7.3. Here is what I’ve discovered using a pure default installation (with the exception of the font, which was changed to Calibri) and a newly created project using the Blank template.
I typed out the top line as shown. I then selected, copied (ctrl-c), and pasted (ctrl-v) each successive sentence in that top line, being sure that all formatting was normal at the paste point.
As can be seen in the screen cap, none of the formatting came through until the entire line was included in the selection.
This is on a new laptop running Windows 8.1 with all updates installed, which I must say is worrisome, since on the surface this points to something peculiar with this particular laptop-Scrivener combo, since if something this basic was a Scriv bug it would have been fixed long ago. This is not an issue on the Windows 7 lappy I’ve been using with Scriv for the last year. 
Any idea what this could be? Would knowing the laptop’s specs be of any help?
I hate to be a pest, but panic is starting to set in.
I’m unable to reliably copy formatting from one location to another, within the same document and across documents. Tags are getting lost and/or ignored and/or scrambled. As far as I can make out, it’s inconsistent.
Here’s another screen cap. Without exception, I am using the plain Copy and plain Paste commands. This is a new project in Scriv 1.8.5.0.
What could possibly cause this? It’s only happening on this one computer, which is brand new, up to date running W8.1, and otherwise working fine. This is most distressing.
Thanks.
Someone? Anyone? Pretty please?
What could account for basic formatting incorrectly copying and pasting from one line to the next, within a single document and from one document to another, in a new project, in a fresh install of the latest version of Scrivener, on a new and up to date Windows 8.1 installation, on a new and fairly high-end Intel-based machine?
On another, also new and nearly identical machine, this is not a problem. Nor is it a problem on the machine(s) I’ve been using for the last year.
In the image below, I’ve copied the first line several times, each time taking one less character. It copies as expected, until it fails, right in the middle of otherwise ordinary formatting.
The test line I’m copying is somewhat unusual in its combination of formats, but it should work – and does on all other Scrivener installations I’ve tested it on. Again, this is a new document, and the problem is not document-specific, but is limited to this one computer. That’s what’s so unusual. Everything else is working fine.
This has brought my ability to work to a near standstill (at least on my new computer), as I need to consolidate hundreds of documents that make extensive use of inline annotations and other formatting that disappear with routine copying and/or pasting.
Do you have any kind of clipboard utilities installed (or any software that might have such an additional feature enabled)? Any AutoHotKey macros that could be intercepting this and adjusting the paste?
What happens if you copy and paste formatted text in another editor, e.g. WordPad, or copy and paste between it and Scrivener?
Thank you! Excellent questions. I will report back. I am optimistic on this.
MM, thank you! You got it at “clipboard utilities.”
I knew it wasn’t AHK, as I tested for that, and made sure it wasn’t running when I was trying to figure it out. Ditto all my preferences.
For some reason I hadn’t thought about the clipboard as an issue. I should have, since I was looking right at it, wondering what was happening between the copy and the paste to make it fail. I knew it wasn’t Scrivener. That’s what had me alarmed and stressed out. But as soon as you mentioned the clipboard, I knew that’s what it had to be.
I was indeed running a clipboard history utility. As soon as I shut it down, both Scrivener and I were happy – though I was less so, as I really love my clipboard history.
Actually, there’s an an interesting backstory to this, involving Scrivener, but it will keep.
I can not tell you how relieved I am. Thanks for the nudge! :mrgreen:
(and may it please the tech gods I am not celebrating prematurely.)
Glad you found it!