Bug report: Paste without formatting in MacOS

Anki Help
1

Often I’ll copy text from Wikipedia and paste it into a note. I’m on a Mac. If I use Cmd-Shift-V, in any other program it just pastes the text without any formatting. In Anki, for whatever reason, it’s also copy pasting the non-breaking spaces. They are before and after whatever words in the WP article that are links to other articles. So, I have to go in and remove them, otherwise it makes for some oddly formatted cards. It does this whether or not I paste into the top (visual entry) or bottom (code) fields.

  1. The “Paste without Shift strips formatting” checkbox is unchecked.
  2. I started in safe mode and the issue persists. If I paste into the visual entry field, the NBSP markup is kept even though I’m doing a Shift-Cmd-V. If I paste into the code field, the NBSPs don’t show initially but as soon as I click into the visual editor, they appear in the code view. I don’t have to hit Save or anything. Simply clicking into the visual field makes them pop into the code field.
  3. If I do a normal Cmd-V in the visual field, I get all the markup, fonts, etc. Like I’d expect. If I do the basic Cmd-V in the code field, all the formatting is stripped out and I just get the text. To my knowledge, the shift is supposed to be removing all formatting and pasting only the text. This seems to be working the opposite of the checkbox mentioned in Item 1.
  4. I’ve checked the “Paste without Shift strips formatting” checkbox and the issue persists. It’s the exact same behavior as previously described. Both in Safe Mode and with all my add-ons loaded.
  5. I’m not using a third party clipboard manager.
  6. I’m using MacOS 15.5.
  7. My debug info: Anki 25.02.5 (29192d15) (ao)

Python 3.9.18 Qt 6.6.2 PyQt 6.6.1

Platform: macOS-15.5-arm64-arm-64bit

===Add-ons (active)===

(add-on provided name [Add-on folder, installed at, version, is config changed])

Better Progress Stats [‘301495874’, 2024-09-30T19:52, ‘None’, ‘’]

CrowdAnki JSON exportimport Edit history Collaborate on deck creation [‘1788670778’, 2023-10-30T14:57, ‘None’, ‘’]

Enhance main window [‘877182321’, 2023-10-22T16:28, ‘None’, mod]

FSRS Helper Postpone Advance Load Balance Easy Days Disperse Siblings [‘759844606’, 2025-05-26T21:35, ‘None’, mod]

Review Heatmap [‘1771074083’, 2022-06-29T21:43, ‘None’, ‘’]

export cardsnotes from browser with metadata to csv or xlsx [‘1967530655’, 2024-03-28T09:16, ‘None’, ‘’]

nbspRemover [‘1676672391’, 2022-06-02T10:18, ‘None’, ‘’]

===IDs of active AnkiWeb add-ons===

1676672391 1771074083 1788670778 1967530655 301495874 759844606 877182321

===Add-ons (inactive)===

(add-on provided name [Add-on folder, installed at, version, is config changed])

Progress bar - Visualize reviewed cards and remaining Fixed by Shige [‘1708250053’, 2024-11-10T15:00, ‘None’, mod]

Note: I asked about this on Reddit and was asked to post here if I didn’t find a topic that matched my own issue. I did not find a relevant report of this behavior as I’ve described. There was a post from 2022 that was similar but not quite the same. (This site’s forum won’t allow me to post a link to the Reddit thread. But it’s in the Anki subreddit and titled “Stripping non-breaking spaces when pasting text from Wikipedia”.)

If there’s any further testing I can do, I’ll be happy to do so.

2

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3

Basically presing CMD + SHIFT + V (to paste without formatting) does nothing - nothing is inserted.

Context:
For a long while I had " Paste without Shift strips formatting" option enabled as I usually preferred to use my own formatting. However I just wanted to have something pasted with formatting so I disabled the option and pasted what I wanted with formatting just fine. Then wanted to paste something with formatting stripped and realised the CMD + SHIFT + V does nothing.

Btw. it would be nice to have the SHIFT flip the option altogether: if the option in setting is disabled then pressing SHIFT would strip formatting, if the option is enabled then SHIFT would retain formatting.

1 Like
5

I merged you into this thread, because it sounds like a similar issue. Check/try some of the things talked about in this user’s original thread on Reddit - The heart of the internet , and see if anything sheds light on the issue.

1 Like
6

Uhm, sorry - didn’t get any notification about your reply/merging.

Actually in troubleshooting mode the cmd+shift+v works correctly and strips the formatting.

So I went over the plugins and voila:

image
image1460×908 67.2 KB

:smiley:

And indeed with Paste without shift key strips formatting checked the setting is flipped so by default cmd+v pastes without any formatting (though it would be nice if it would strip completely the html and left only newlines… or ideally convert it into markdown…) and with cmd+shift+v I get the formatting… good :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

This topic was automatically closed after 30 days. New replies are no longer allowed.