Annoying problem: When I copy-and-paste from Word, Ghost treats it as an image. But copy-and-paste from Google Docs works (mostly) fine.
I can paste into Ghost from Word using “Paste and match style,” but I lose all formatting that way, as well as hyperlinks.
So, I’ve been using Word to build a very complex document I have to post everyday, then copying it to a Google Doc, then copying that to Ghost. Obviously, I would like to leave out the intermediate step. (And I’m using Word for this because I built a fairly complex macro to construct the document.)
Anybody have an idea why Ghost does this with copy-and-paste from Word?
Bruce, I think you’re not getting replies because this is not typical behavior. When I cut and paste out of word, I get fairly well-formed text in Ghost. I’ve never had it paste in as an image, although I think it’s possible to set your default paste to do that… It’s definitely possible to paste INTO Word with the default paste as an image. I just tried copying and pasting from Word, and actually on this version of Chrome, I get just two choices, regular paste and paste as plain text (choices accessible by right clicking). Regular paste preserves hyperlinks. Plain text doesn’t.
Could you try another browser, or an updated current of your current browser if very old? Is it possible you’ve got a plugin or extension modifying the behavior?
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Interesting.
I always keep all software up to date, so no older versions here.
I use Ghost inside Wavebox, which is a Chromium-based multi-site, multi-tab tool. Your comment made me try something I should have tried earlier: editing a post outside of Wavebox in a regular Chrome browser window.
Guess what – same results. Copying straight from Word pasted as an image. (If you want to see, here’s a screen recording: selected text copied and pasted into Word – link)
So, just for S&G, I tried the same experiment with editing a Ghost post in Safari. And it worked! Everything in Word pasted correctly – including the soft returns vs hard returns that I’ve been chasing for months.
Unfortunately, it’s not perfect: colored text doesn’t come over, font sizes don’t come over, and for tables, it pastes the really ugly XML code that Word uses behind the scenes.
BUT – for the use case I described earlier, it works. And it cuts out a big step for me.
Now I have to decide whether to stop using Wavebox for post editing. And I’m still wondering why the problem with Chrome.
That’s really interesting, Bruce!
I run Chrome on Windows (10), where it works just fine.
I’m not at all surprised that font size and color doesn’t come over correctly – the Ghost editor doesn’t expose any way to set those up directly (except HTML/MD cards).
Now I’ve got to go test a table… :) Update: I pasted a mixture of ‘normal’ text and a table. The normal text went into the Ghost editor normally. The table went into an HTML card, and looks great.
So, it’s definitely worth some experimenting with browser settings. Yours isn’t doing you right!
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Just in case someone else comes across this thread:
This is a known issue with Google products. For example, here and here and here.
Lots of possible solutions out there, including clearing everything in the browser, creating a new Chrome user profile, and more. One person mentioned using Inspect to look at “event listeners” and deleting any under “paste.” I did that, and could paste text from Word with all the formatting intact. But in fact, it pasted it twice in the Ghost editor – once as Ghost would have formatted it, and once as it was formatted in Word.
At this point, it’s not worth chasing any further for me. If I really need to paste something from Word with hyperlinks and such, I’ll just use Safari to access the Ghost admin.
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