In recent versions, Obsidian started to include the formatting when pasting with Ctrl-V, and use Ctrl-Shift-V for pasting raw text.
I think the feature is great. However, as I see in the forum, some users seem to be confused or annoyed because they do not expect this or want to paste raw text more frequently, and prefer to use Ctrl-V since that is simpler and already stored in “muscle memory”.
As a remedy, the option “Auto Convert HTML” has been introduced that allows such users to deactivate the formatted pasting.
However, this option now completely removes the ability to paste formatted. It is then not even possible to do it via the context menu (if switched off, the menu still has both entries, but they are then wrongly labeled and work the same, without formatting). (tested with 0.11.3)
My suggestion is to change the option so that it simply reverses the behavior of Ctrl-V and Ctrl-Shift-V instead of completly removing the feature. It don’t think it is that people don’t want to be able to paste formatted at all, they just don’t want to do it by default.
Second the reverse suggestion. I think it makes much more sense to have it behave that way. As a suggestion, have it default to raw paste and Ctrl+Shift+V as formatted paste and then add a config option that allows people to swap that functionality. Then people could chose what they prefer.
Customization would be appreciated. For example when pasting from Wikipedia it’s nice to have HTML converted to Markdown with some portions escaped, citations in particular:
Previously: [\[1\]](https://example.com)
Citation clickable, full url not displayed
Now: [[1]](https://example.com)
Citation displayed without brackets, full url displayed, url clickable, Obsidian offers to create a page for the citation if one doesn’t exist instead of the citation being linked
Seriously! This feature is kind of annoying as it is. The usability suggestion by @Cito is perfect. Alternatively, add a right-click option to paste with Auto-Converted HTML to MD.
It seems reasonable that people might like to keep Ctrl-V as a simple text paste, but occasionally want hyperlinks to transcribe.
I personally never want HTML formatting other than copying hyperlinks. Currently Obsidian can’t convert HTML hyperlinks when this setting is toggled off. When it’s toggled on, not only does it ruin the standard paste hotkey, but it introduces all this formatting that has to be undone. Just so we can have easy hyperlink conversion. This feature is so clunky!
An amazing feature upgrade would allow us to choose the whether it translates as much style as possible or just the hyperlinks.
(hyperlinks are kind of a lot work to grab otherwise)
I too hope this will be fixed and agree with the suggestion to just swap the Ctrl + V and Ctrl + Shift + V behavior. I’m not sure how these annoying regressions get introduced in the first place, but they make it so it feels like I’m fighting my tools instead of them helping me.
Okay, I have a question. I am new to Obsidian. I use Joplin but am looking to switch over to Obsidian. When I past in Joplin it keeps all of the formatting. But I cant seem to get Obsidian to do the same. Here is wahta it looks like in Joplin:
This is because Joplin probably converts to HTML (well it is already HTML so not much to convert) while Obsidian converts to Markdown which is much simpler than HTML and does not have many formatting and styling capabilities (so it needs to “downgrade” the original formatting and keep only the essential bits like bold or italics or headings).
