Issues with Copy/Pasting from Reading

Once you’ve done the above, delete everything above this line.

Steps to reproduce

I often craft documents, emails, etc. in Obsidian that have a mixture of ‘normal’ text as well as code blocks (monospaced fonts). From the reading view, I’ll then copy the formatted text and paste it into the target application (Outlook, Word, etc.)

Expected result

I expect to see text formatted properly — both the ‘normal’ text as well as the monospaced fonts.

Actual result

When copying a note in reading view that has both ‘normal’ text and code blocks (monospaced fonts), the monospaced font is pasted into another application with a font name of ‘var(–font-monospace)’. This happens to code blocks as well as code spans.

Environment

  • Operating system: macOS 12.6
  • Debug info:
    SYSTEM INFO:
    Obsidian version: v1.0.3
    Installer version: v0.15.6
    Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 21.6.0: Mon Aug 22 20:19:52 PDT 2022; root:xnu-8020.140.49~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 21.6.0
    Login status: not logged in
    Insider build toggle: off
    Live preview: on
    Legacy editor: off
    Base theme: light
    Community theme: Minimal
    Snippets enabled: 0
    Restricted mode: off
    Plugins installed: 9
    Plugins enabled: 9
    1: Paste URL into selection v1.7.0
    2: txt as md v0.0.1
    3: Hider v1.2.3
    4: Style Settings v0.4.12
    5: Minimal Theme Settings v6.1.0
    6: Contextual Typography v2.2.4
    7: Smart Typography v1.0.18
    8: Omnisearch v1.9.0
    9: Ozan’s Image in Editor Plugin v2.1.5

RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.


Additional information

The issue still happens in the Sandbox Vault. My current workaround is viewing the note in something liked Marked 2 and copy/pasting from there.

As an additional test, I changed my main font to a monospaced font (Consolas). When copy/pasting the note, the Consolas ‘normal’ font was pasted fine. The stylized code span and cod blocks still were pasted as ‘var(–font-monospace)’

I am not sure I consider a bug or feature request. I don’t think we ever made guarantees that copy paste the reader HTML was going to work.
So please, open a FR.

Thanks for the reply!

Totally understand. However, just wanted to make sure that this is indeed something that you/others can reproduce and not some weird edge case that I’m running into?

I can reproduce. I am going to keep it as bug report with low priority

1 Like

Hi, all! I use Obsidian to take notes during my work day as I work, and then send them to my manager at the end of the day. It was working fine until I got v1 in October, and since then, I’ve had problems with copy/paste. I posted this in the forum two months ago, but go no reply:

Steps to reproduce

In Reading Mode, copy text with an unordered or ordered list in it. Paste the text into gmail or a google doc

Expected result

The bullets or numbers should display as they do in Reading Mode

Actual result

The list items are indented, but no bullets or numbers are shown

Environment

  • Operating system:
    Originally Windows 10, but now also Windows 11
  • Debug info:
    ORIGINAL SYSTEM INFO:
    Obsidian version: v1.0.3
    Installer version: v0.15.9
    Operating system: Windows 10 Home 10.0.19044
    Login status: not logged in
    Insider build toggle: off
    Live preview: on
    Legacy editor: off
    Base theme: adapt to system
    Community theme: none
    Snippets enabled: 0
    Restricted mode: on
    CURRENT SYSTEM INFO:
    Obsidian version: v1.1.8
    Installer version: v0.15.9
    Operating system: Windows 10 Home 10.0.22621
    Login status: not logged in
    Insider build toggle: off
    Live preview: on
    Legacy editor: off
    Base theme: adapt to system
    Community theme: none
    Snippets enabled: 0
    Restricted mode: on

Additional information

It pasted correctly before v1.0


Is this an issue for anyone else? Is there maybe a setting on my end that got un-set that is causing this? I’d really like to fix it, because my end-of-day emails to my manager just look bad without the bullets. Thanks!

2 Likes

I tested pasting from read mode to gmail with the sandbox vault:

  • Ordered Lists work fine.
  • Unordered Lists paste indented, but missing the bullet points.

On a side note, it also pastes with theme colors (or close to them?). So if I paste with dark mode, the text is white, with a grey background.

1 Like

Thanks for verifying. I also have noticed that checkboxes don’t paste properly, both unchecked and checked.

1 Like