how to drag and drop formatted notes into Word

AnnFran
I have searched the forums high and low, but I still have not been able to figure out how to do this. I am using Zotero 2.1.6, Firefox 4.0.1, and Word 2008 for Mac (Snow Leopard). I would like to be able to drag multiple notes into Word so that I can work with them there (arrange them into a writing outline). But when I do this, the notes loose their formatting, including paragraph breaks, and are peppered with HTML tags. I found one supposed fix to this problem -- holding down Control + Shift while dragging (see this thread: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/5923/drag-standalone-note-into-document/) but it does not work for me. I realize that I can save the formatting if I copy notes individually within the notes pane, but this would obviously be considerably more time consuming. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
  • dstillman
    Works fine for me with those versions.
  • dstillman
    What is your Default Output Format in the Export pane of the Zotero preferences, and do you have "Copy as HTML" selected?
  • AnnFran
    My default output option is "Chicago Manual of Style (Note without Bibliography). I didn't have "Copy as HTML" selected, but I do now. This by itself didn't change anything. I'm playing around with other output formats. Which one do you use? I don't care so much about the formatting at this point, because I'll do footnotes later. This is just to get my notes organized.
  • adamsmith
    You probably shouldn't have "copy as html" selected.
  • Simon
    edited May 31, 2011
    I can reproduce this if the note has an nbsp in it (e.g., if there is an empty paragraph). We should fix this.
  • AnnFran
    Aha! That is indeed it. If I remove empty paragraphs, the formatting is preserved in the drag and drop. The problem is that I have imported 100s (maybe 1000s) of notes into Zotero, and most of them will have blank paragraphs, since I tend to space out my notes in various ways. I can remove them for the cards for this project, but I'd really appreciate a fix so that I don't have to go through my whole database. Thanks for identifying the problem Simon! Annette
  • dstillman
    This is fixed for 2.1.7, which will be out very soon.
  • AnnFran
    Wonderful! Thanks so much!
  • AnnFran
    edited June 10, 2011
    FIY: The problem is now substantially fixed, but after working with this for awhile I have noticed that two empty lines (i.e. three paragraph breaks in a row) will still produce the problem. Formatting also is lost when notes have been imported with other kinds of added formatting. I can't quite put my finger on the problem, but this happened, for example, when I pasted notes into Zotero that I had first produced in SKIM and exported from there as an RFT. When this note was dragged into Word, the formatting turned to HTML. Perhaps it was the soft carriage returns produced by this process? It might also be heading styles copied from Word. Just a heads up.
  • dstillman
    The problem is now substantially fixed, but after working with this for awhile I have noticed that two empty lines (i.e. three paragraph breaks in a row) will still produce the problem.
    Fixed in the latest dev builds, and the fix will be included in 2.1.9. Thanks.
Sign In or Register to comment.