27

(Similar to my earlier question about Windows XP and darren_n's follow-up for Mac OS X.)

I regularly copy and paste text between spreadsheets, emails, browser windows, etc. I can't think of a single time when I've wanted to keep the formatting from the source text.

I already know about the following workarounds:

  • In OpenOffice, click “Edit” → “Paste Special” or press Ctrl+Shift+V, then click “Unformatted Text”
  • Paste to Text Editor and copy from there

What I want is to tell Ubuntu to just do this by default.

Is this possible?

Scott - Слава Україні
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Nathan Long
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4 Answers4

20

In Ubuntu 11.04 and higher I can use Ctrl-Shift-V to paste plain text.

Martin Konecny
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2

You should use the select - middleclick action, which on Unix only copies text (and this is cited as a drawback when promoting real copy-paste of rich objects).

What happens (I'm guessing a bit, but I'm fairly sure I'm right) is that OpenOffice recognizes characters in a similar fashion to Markdown (actually, the other way round: OO came first), and formats them.

For example, in OO, if you start typing "* text" and press Enter, you start an unordered bulleted list. Typing - text gets you a bulleted list starting with emdash. 1. text starts an ordered list. All automatically.

So what I mean is that this is not an Ubuntu problem, but the Office Suite trying to DWYM. Which, really, seems the best course here. If I copied your question into OO, I'd prefer the formatting to remain, otherwise I'd copy it into e.g. Vim.

Finally, there are some helpful tips here (basically, add a macro that does what you want, assign it to a key combination of your choice). This should work no matter the OS.

Adriano Varoli Piazza
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1

Select your text with the mouse (highlight it), then middle click where you want to paste

Yoann Le Touche
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1

Personnally I use an intermediate editor window (nedit) that would'nt support formatting. That's far from ideal though.

wazoox
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