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

Brian Barker wrote
> 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


This did help. Thank you. I'd tried a few things before, don't remember what
and nothing helped. It would even export the gray boxes to the pdf. Maybe it
was different vrs of the different programs that have helped at this later
date. BTW Open office does the same thing NOW but on my old computer it
didn't which is what threw me off. 

Anyway, I can live with doing a search/replace. So simple a solution, I
guess I was thinking too complex in my other troubleshooting. Thanks for the
help.



--
View this message in context: 
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Gray-boxes-on-copy-paste-from-browser-tp4098209p4098385.html
Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

-- 
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