Re: [libreoffice-users] Gray boxes on copy paste from browser

At 10:50 20/02/2014 -0800, Shawn Yve wrote:
> Background info: I'm a moderator for a writers workshop forum and we 
> turn our lessons into a PDF at the end of a workshop.
>
> When I copy/paste from chrome into writer I end up with small gray 
> boxes (one space height/width) scattered through my document.

The most obvious possibility is that these are non-breaking 
spaces.  You will know that HTML requires browsers to conflate 
consecutive whitespace characters into a single space.  Where 
necessary, this can be prevented by the use of the HTML non-breaking 
space character,  .  In addition (and as its name suggests), the 
character can be used to prevent consecutive words splitting across a 
line break.

The same concept exists in word processors (see Insert | Formatting 
Mark > | Non-breaking space) and the Paste function is giving you 
like for like - honouring the HTML source code and not just the 
appearance of the web page in your browser.

> To get rid of them I must either delete each one or paste to textpad 
> and then back which of course loses all formatting.

In fact, you don't need to get rid of them.  If you want to preserve 
the spacing that they represent, ignore them and proceed.  They will 
show up - well, *not* show up, in fact! - just as spaces would in 
your final PDF document.  (There is one difference: non-breaking 
spaces do not expand as do ordinary ones in Justified text.)  If you 
do wish to remove or replace them (with the consequent change to the 
document formatting), you can search for them in the normal 
way.  Select one of the characters before you open the Find & Replace 
dialogue and you will find it helpfully inserted for you in the 
"Search for" box.  If you just find the grey appearance troublesome, 
you could replace them with ordinary spaces - but proper document 
formatting might be better.

> I've also tried firefox and copy/pasting from other forums/pages. 
> I've even opened an emailed doc where the sender copied from a 
> browser and the boxes still show up.

As you will now understand, this is because the web pages and word 
processor documents contain such special characters and the Paste 
function is honouring them faithfully.

> I hope someone can help as I'm stumped and will have to return to 
> open office as this is a time sink. :(

Surely OpenOffice behaves identically in this respect?  Or have I 
misunderstood the whole problem?

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted