Incorrect word wrapping

Bug reports
1

Incorrect word wrapping and leading spaces in Obsidian on macOS

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open Obsidian 1.14.5 on macOS Tahoe.

  2. Create a new vault with the default theme.

  3. Create a Markdown note.

  4. Type the following paragraph manually, without copying or pasting:

    Arantxa Alarcón desarrolló su trayectoria literaria mediante la publicación de sus primeras obras. Su producción combina diferentes recursos narrativos y presenta personajes que experimentan conflictos emocionales.

  5. Resize the editor window so the paragraph wraps across multiple lines.

  6. Observe how words and spaces are displayed at line boundaries.

  7. Repeat in Live Preview, Source Mode, and Reading View.

Expected result

Text should wrap at normal word boundaries without splitting words arbitrarily.

For example, Spanish words such as “desarrolló”, “publicación”, and the monosyllable “su” should remain intact.

Wrapped lines should not display unexpected leading spaces.

Actual result

Words are visually split at arbitrary character positions, including:

  • “desarr” / “olló”

  • “desarroll” / “o”

  • “publicació” / “n”

  • “s” / “u”

When changing the font or font size, the split sometimes moves to another character. In some cases, the word remains intact, but the following wrapped line appears to begin with an unexpected space or indentation.

The issue persists when text is typed manually, so it is not specific to pasted content.

Environment

  • Operating system: macOS Tahoe (exact version/build not yet recorded)

  • Obsidian version: 1.14.5

  • Installer version before manual update: 1.8.3

  • Installer: manually updated from the official Obsidian download

  • Default theme: tested

  • Community plugins: tested with Restricted Mode enabled

  • Custom CSS snippets: none enabled

  • New, separate vault: issue reproduced

  • Editor modes: Source Mode and Live Preview affected

  • Reading View: abnormal wrapping also observed

Troubleshooting already performed

  • Restarted Obsidian and macOS.

  • Changed to the default theme.

  • Disabled community plugins.

  • Confirmed no CSS snippets were active.

  • Disabled Readable Line Length.

  • Changed font family and font size.

  • Reset application zoom using Cmd+0.

  • Updated the Obsidian installer.

  • Created a separate, new vault.

  • Compared the same text in macOS TextEdit, where wrapping worked correctly.

  • Inspected the editor’s CSS through Developer Tools.

The computed editor styles included:

  • word-break: break-word

  • overflow-wrap: anywhere

  • white-space: break-spaces

Temporarily changing or disabling these properties did not provide a usable solution. Some combinations caused the paragraph to become one horizontally scrolling line. All experimental CSS changes were discarded by restarting Obsidian.

Developer Console errors related to external Google Books image requests were also observed, but no connection to the text-wrapping issue has been established.

Additional information

The issue affects normal Spanish-language prose and is reproducible without pasting text from an external application.

Screenshots are available showing incorrect wrapping, apparent leading spaces, and the CSS properties inspected in Developer Tools.

I would appreciate guidance on whether this is a known CodeMirror/Electron text-rendering issue on macOS Tahoe, and whether there is a supported workaround.

2

I observed the same issue with English text. I did a quick test this morning. Generated text from the ChatGPT pasted into the Obsidian wraps incorrectly. The same text pasted into the Notion - the same result. And the interesting part is that I generated text a few days ago, using the same prompt with ChatGPT and there was no issue. I will do more testing later.

3

Thank you for your response! I have conducted a few additional tests that might help narrow down the issue.

I used the same short passage of text and tested copying and pasting it into Obsidian using different methods.

Test results:

  1. Another AI system (Perplexity) → Obsidian (CMD + V): No word-wrapping problems.

  2. ChatGPT code block (Markdown) → Obsidian (CMD + V): No word-wrapping problems.

  3. ChatGPT regular formatted response → Obsidian (CMD + V): The word-wrapping problem occurs.

The third test reproduced the issue even though the text was essentially identical.

These results suggest that the problem might be related to how formatted text is copied from ChatGPT’s interface, rather than the text content itself.

One possibility is that copying a regular ChatGPT response places different formatting or invisible characters on the clipboard compared with copying from a Markdown code block.

I cannot confirm the underlying cause, but I hope these results will be useful in investigating the issue.

For now, copying Markdown directly from a code block appears to be a reliable workaround in my tests.

4

Hello again!

Great news! I believe we have successfully narrowed down the issue.

Following your suggestion, I tested ChatGPT with two additional browsers on macOS, using the same text and pasting it into Obsidian with CMD + V.

Results:

  • Safari: Word-wrapping errors persist.

  • Google Chrome: Works perfectly, no errors.

  • Mozilla Firefox: Works perfectly, no errors.

Clearing Safari cookies and website data did not resolve the issue.

These findings strongly suggest a Safari-specific clipboard compatibility issue involving ChatGPT and Obsidian.

Thank you for suggesting the browser comparison. It helped us identify a reliable workaround.

I will also share these findings with the Obsidian Forum community.

Could you please pass these results along to your technical team for further investigation?

5

I tested ChatGPT Desktop app, and works perfectly, no errors.

6

I sent it to Apple.

“Thank you for your feedback on Safari”