Plain‑text Quick Copy not placed on macOS clipboard

Juan110
After the recent Zotero update on macOS, the Cmd+C no longer places plain‑text on the system clipboard as it did before.

Previously, when I copied a selected annotated item (including Zotero links), the text was available as plain text and could be pasted into any editor — including Emacs, terminal apps, and other plain‑text software.

Example content that used to be on the clipboard:

“TextContent” ([Author, 2015, p. 4](zotero://path..)) ([pdf](zotero://...path))

*Current behavior*:
• The copied content is not available in plain‑text editors.
• Pasting works in rich‑text/HTML editors (e.g., Word, Obsidian), where links appear correctly.
• Pasting into applications that only read plain text (e.g., Emacs or terminal editors) results in nothing being pasted.

*Settings*:
• OS: macOS
• Zotero Quick Copy preferences:
- Note Format: Markdown + Rich Text
- Markdown: Include Zotero Links (activated)
- Rich Text/HTML: Include Zotero Links (activated)

This worked reliably before the recent update, and now the plain‑text part of the clipboard appears to be missing or not correctly set for apps that rely on the system pasteboard.

Is this a regression in clipboard behavior, or am I missing a setting?

Report ID: 457430253

Please let me know if you need additional details.
Thank you for your excellent work on Zotero!
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Working fine with 8.0.4 here.

    Can you reproduce this in Troubleshooting Mode (Help → "Restart in Troubleshooting Mode…”)?
  • Juan110
    Thank you very much for your reply. I’m also using Zotero 8.0.4, and I tried restarting in Troubleshooting Mode, but I still get the same result.

    At the moment, I can copy the item to Rich-text applications like Word or Obsidian without any issue, but copying to the terminal or Emacs does not work. Do you have any idea what might be causing this problem?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited 22 days ago
    Can you provide a Debug ID for triggering the copy?

    You can also try something like https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pasteboard-viewer/id1499215709 to see what's actually being put on the clipboard.
  • Juan110
    Thank you for your reply.
    The Debug ID for triggering the copy action is: D1165879249

    I also tested the clipboard contents using Pasteboard Viewer, the clipboard formats appear as follows:

    1. org.mozilla.custom-clipdata
    zotero/annotation {"id": "V2XPD8N8", "type": "highlight",
    "text": "It runs the MapReduce job",
    "color": "#ffd400", "comment": "",
    "position": {"rects": [[72.291, 512.804, 276.82, 526.969]],
    "pageIndex": 53}, "pageLabel": "26", "tags": [],
    "attachmentItemID": 19893}

    2. public.utf8-plain-text
    This entry is EMPTY.

    3. public.html (html format):

    “It runs the MapReduce job” (White, 2015, p. 26)
    (pdf)


    It seems that the issue is that the public.utf8-plain-text representation is always empty but don't know why. Thank you for your time and for all the guidance.
  • Juan110
    After looking into this a bit more, I noticed a change that might possibly be related (though I’m not sure). In this commit in Zotero:

    https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/3c6ad491b50053d8f7afaf49af03733dd209f1c0#diff-31501568743910404569e1f9993ccefdbc56d006574a6bd635c34e60cbb39e1dL807

    the file fileInterface.js removes these lines:

    cslEngine.free();
    cslEngine = style.getCiteProc(locale, ‘text’);

    Could removing this affect the output format and cause only HTML to be written to the macOS clipboard, leaving public.utf8-plain-text empty?

    I’m not sure if it’s related, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.
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