Copying&Pasting Web-page Text on to Word

[doversoul1]

Having endured very slow or often no internet connection, I now have a new PC (Windows 10) and life is back to normal. Well, almost.

When I copy a piece of text on a web page via Internet Explore 10 (I thing) or Edge and copy on to Word, it gets stuck (the circle going round) or paste with half a page of what looks like an empty table. Or in the case of The Guardian, the copy looks like this. I have tried Non printing characters but it made no difference.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://assets.guim.co.uk/stylesheets/31281f642f1318168ee6da6b311aa03e/content.css"/>
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has backed Theresa May’s decision to wait until next

Is this a problem of the setting in my PC or something else? So far, Firefox seems to have no problem.

Also, what’s this green line runs across the bottom of the screen every so often?

[Dave2002]

I guess you mean this web page - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...exit-this-year

I tried it on my Mac, into Word 2011. If I select a section of text it seems to work OK. If I select the whole page (would be CTRL-A on a PC) then it picks up all the junk - adverts etc., and takes longer, but still works - though perhaps not so well, and it could work differently on different days due to the different adverts. There is similar behaviour dropping the text into LibreOffice - which is more likely to crash with this kind of thing. Also kind of works with OpenOffice.

Results are slightly different tryiing to copy from Chrome, rather than Firefox, but at least the text works, though there may be images splattered all over the place.

If you want text, it is best to select the text explicitly. The photos may get positioned anywhere - depending on browser used and word processing package. Also, the complete bundle may very well take some time to copy, and deleting the bundled text from the final file may also not work properly - i.e bits get left, or need separate specific removal.

If you want the page as it appeas on the screen, then probably the best thing is to save as a web (html) file - which should be possible even in Win 10, or use a screen grabber and save it as an image.

Good luck.

[MrGongGong]

Isn't there a windows equivalent of the OSX "Paste without formatting" shortcut ? (Shift + Option + Command+V)

[Cockney Sparrow]

I suggest you establish what version of Word (Document program) you are using. And Google this:

Word XXXX: Keyboard shortcut to paste unformatted text

In my case "Word 2003 Keyboard shortcut to paste unformatted text" ( I have little need to update Word 2003 so I haven't). I find there is no shortcut - there is for later versions - when I cut and paste. a small clipboard icon appears in the Word doc - right click and select "Unformatted text". But you get quite a bit of Junk from the listings on Radio 3 where it has those playlister links I'm afraid. Copying a web article I copy chunks of text in stages and try to avoid photos and inset boxes.

[doversoul1]

Dave 2002
I was trying to copy just a piece of text and not the entire page, and I’d forgotten that I am using LibreOffice and not Word now.

MrGG
I don’t seem to have Option and Command on my keyboard (or are they somewhere else?) but have googled ‘paste without changing format’ and ‘copying option’ which look useful.

Many thanks to you both. I’ll work at it and see if I can make some sense. It has been a big jump to Windows 10 from Vista and I am still quite a bit dazed.

[ed.] Thank you, too Cheapside.

[Dave2002]

Isn't there a windows equivalent of the OSX "Paste without formatting" shortcut ? (Shift + Option + Command+V)

You probably already know the keyboard shortcut for Paste (Mac: command-v, Windows: ctrl-v). The shortcut for Paste Without Formatting is easy to remember. Just add the Shift key. (Mac: command-shift-v, Windows: ctrl-shift-v).

Taken from - http://blog.gilbertconsulting.com/20...ormatting.html

There is also this - http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-...py-paste-text/
This contains the hint to copy-paste into a text editor, then copy out again - see below.

I quite often copy into a text editor, then copy out again - e.g TextWrangler for Mac, but other text editors will do. There are surely several which will work in Windows.

See http://lifehacker.com/five-best-text-editors-1564907215

I used to use Notepad++

There are more here - http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/1...ers-71412411/2

I also recall using WinEdt for programming, at one time - and it was recommended at the time - http://www.winedt.com/