Pasting Word text into other applications

[WilliamGallagher]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel Is there a way to stop this happening, please? Currently if you select several paragraphs in Word 2008, copy them and then paste into another application such as Apple's Mail, peculiar formatting is added.

Specifically, every paragraph becomes separated by return, space, return.

So to be clear: it creates an extra paragraph that consists solely of a space. It looks bad enough that it's effectively double-spaced but that rogue added space is exasperating.

You would expect that this was a problem with the target application but no: do the same thing with Word 2004 going to Mail and the pasting is done correctly. Use Word 2008 and specify Mail's "Paste and Match Text" so that the formatting follows that of any existing text in the email and... the same thing happens.

I tell you, I'll buy Word 2011 if it fixes this.

Thanks for any help,
William

 

[John McGhie]

Hi William:

Well... It doesn't happen here

Let me guess... You are hitting "Return" twice at the end of each
paragraph?

That's not correct technique, in Word. The "Return" in Word is a "New
Paragraph" command, and Mail is honouring it (as it should) by creating a
blank paragraph. Because Mail doesn't show you paragraph marks, you can't
see it, but that's what you're getting, and that's the correct behaviour.

In Word, you should use a style with ten points space after to produce
inter-paragraph spacing, then hit Return only once at the end of each
paragraph.

If you do that, the result will paste correctly into Word. And you won't
have to buy a new version of Word. Although: there will be several other
reasons you may want to buy Word 2011

Hope this helps

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
Is there a way to stop this happening, please? Currently if you select several
paragraphs in Word 2008, copy them and then paste into another application
such as Apple's Mail, peculiar formatting is added.

Specifically, every paragraph becomes separated by return, space, return.

So to be clear: it creates an extra paragraph that consists solely of a space.
It looks bad enough that it's effectively double-spaced but that rogue added
space is exasperating.

You would expect that this was a problem with the target application but no:
do the same thing with Word 2004 going to Mail and the pasting is done
correctly. Use Word 2008 and specify Mail's "Paste and Match Text" so that the
formatting follows that of any existing text in the email and... the same
thing happens.

I tell you, I'll buy Word 2011 if it fixes this.

Thanks for any help,
William

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello William;

I can confirm what you're reporting but with 2 notable exceptions:

1- The space _is_ added regardless of whether the content is copied from a
Word 2008 or Word 2004 document, &

2- It only occurs when pasting into an email message, not when pasting into
any other type of document, including TextEdit.

[This is with Mail 4.2 in OS X 10.6.3 as well as with Mail 2.1.3 in OS X
10.4.11, Word 12.2.4 & 11.5.6 respectively.]

It only occurs, however, if there are empty paragraphs (¶) separating the
text... If the empty ¶s aren't there it doesn't happen. The only other way
I've found to avoid it is to paste into TextEdit, then recopy from there.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac