Cut and Paste from OneNote

ajxmw10
When I cut and paste text from OneNote into a Zotero 6.0.6 note it puts into a box as an uneditable image. The text is so tiny it is unreadable. Works sort of fine doing a cut and paste from Word, it copies it as plain unformatted text.

I use OneNote as my default drafting, idea processing, note taking and editing tool. I also use indents, colour etc to highlight particular points. Previously I made my notes in OneNote as I read a book or document and then at the end of the session I cut and paste it into a Zotero note associated with the reference document. It worked fine until recent version 6? update

Previously the OneNote cut and paste would take the formatted text (heading, bold, colour etc) across unchanged as editable text. But not now. Or am I missing something? Drag and drop works but it won't take the One Note page title at the same time as the page body. That is sort of a work round, but means I need to do develop a new habit as it is a change to my usual practice with eevrything else.

Is it possible to revert to the old way of moving text from OneNote in version 6?
  • ajxmw10
    Another point, drag and drop does not allow overwriting of old version of text in the note. The text to be replaced/updated has to be deleted separately from the moving the OneNote (master) text, makes it a two-stage process.
  • martynas_b
    @ajxmw10 Could you make a screenshot demonstrating the issue?
  • ajxmw10
    Yes, but how do I post it here?

  • martynas_b
    You can upload it to Google Drive, Dropbox or any other free website that allows to do it.
  • ajxmw10
    edited May 6, 2022
    https://1drv.ms/b/s!ApTZmjkOogN_maFFcWKhIBDOMiSinw?e=hPi4eF

    That is on OneDrive

    This PDF is a screenshot of the note edit window. The top text is from a drag and drop which woirks much as cut and paste used to do, except it cannot overwrite in the receiving note. Below it is the text image box from a cut and paste (both from OneNote). The text image is readable in this window on my 28in monitor but so tiny in Zotero's note side bar as to be unreadable.
  • martynas_b
    @ajxmw10 The new note editor is pasting an image if it was copied to the clipboard. The real question is why OneNote is copying an image to the clipboard when you are copying text. Maybe you can disable this behavior in OneNote settings.
  • ajxmw10
    That crossed my mind, but when I cut and paste from OneNote to any other of my applications it goes across as formatted editable text, as it did in Zotero until version 6.

    So other applications, including none Microsoft, are not seeing OneNote copy (ctrl-c/x in win 10) clipboard contents as an image. In all other non Zotero 6 cases default save is as editable text not image. For an application like Zotero thati smuchj more useful than pasting a non-editanle image.

    I do not see any options in OneNote for changing copy behaviour. Nor do I see any reason to have to use a non-standard method when it works as expected with all the other software I use, and did with Zotero 5. It is only Zotero 6 that is behaving in a non standard way.

    However, other OneNote uisers have similar issues with other software: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/copy-and-paste-from-onenote-as-an-image-not-text/d77148a4-eef7-4940-aa8b-f56b610d5ebb

    A sort of solution seems to be Shift-Ctrl-V to force paste as text but it loses text formatting, bold etc. It seems that Ctrl-Alt-V may give an option to choose paste format in some cases but not in Zotero it seems.
  • dstillman
    edited May 6, 2022
    It's not clear that we could do anything different here. This seems like a OneNote bug, or at least questionable behavior. Why should it be putting an image on the clipboard when you're copying only text?

    You're always going to get text in plain-text apps like Notepad, but why wouldn't a rich-text editor like Zotero that supports images choose the image over text when one is available? How would we differentiate that from an app copying both an image and alt-text to the clipboard?

    In what other non-Microsoft apps are you getting text?
  • ajxmw10
    edited May 6, 2022
    One can set an option in Word to select default paste behaviour, default is to keep source formatting. The pull down Paste option, rather than Ctrl-V, gives choices of behaviour of course. No pull down edit menu in Zotero notes.

    Why not adopt similar option and behaviour in Zotero?
  • dstillman
    I'm not sure what you mean by that. This isn't about "source formatting" — it's about OneNote putting an image on the clipboard, and Zotero supporting the pasting of images.
  • ajxmw10
    Word, Scrivener and all the many other applications that I use can cope with the OneNote 'image' and post by default as formatted text. The only exception are those like Notepad that use plain text only, they lose the formatting as would be expected. Even Zotero 4 and 5 handled the OneNote clipboard just fine and pasted as formatted text so this is a Zotero 6 issue.

    Many application also allow the option of pasting as plain text or as an image.

    So the problem is with Zotero not behaqving like dozens of other applications, including earlier versions of Zotero, in handling the OneNote clipboard contents. I have not found any other of my applications that works like Zotero 6,
  • esthervandamme
    Same problem here, I can copy paste text (as text) from OneNote into any other program, but not into Zotero. In Zotero it becomes a small uneditable picture. My only workaround has been to first copy paste it in another program, and then copy paste it again in Zotero. It worked fine before. What has changed in the newest updates?
  • esthervandamme
    Update: Shift + Ctrl V will paste as text instead of an image.
  • rhysie21
    esthervandamme, thanks for finding a work-around. This has been driving me crazy! It happens with Powerpoint, too. I've never experienced it anywhere but the new release of Zotero.
  • ecp52
    Like ajxmw10 I find that ctrl-shift-v loses formatting, but the dragging of text is a nice workaround.
    Previously I had resorted to copying into a word doc then transferring to Zotero note.
    Note that copy-pasting from a google doc seems to strip formatting though.
Sign In or Register to comment.