Paste text - always unformatted possible?

Hi,

I am in the process of translating a couple of catalogues made in Xara into three more languages.

I received the translated texts a Word-file. There are a lot of tables and diagrams to translate, so I have to do a VERY large number of copy/paste from translation to document.

On every paste, Xara gives me three options:

Unformatted text
Rich Text Format
HTML format

For this project, I almost always need "Unformatted text", so that the original format in my document stays intact.

But it is incredible cumbersome to chose this option hundreds of times, with every single paste.

Is there a way to temporarily ALWAYS use "Unformatted text" without asking?
But it can't be permanent, for the next project I might need one of the other options as well.

I am running Designer Pro X17

Any ideas?
Cheers

@Wolfgang, the simplest would be to copy the entire MS Word document into a text editor and to then copy and paste text from that into your Xara design.

You could also look into Ditto Portable - https://ditto-cp.sourceforge.io; it is a Clipboard Manager.

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

@Wolfgang, the simplest would be to copy the entire MS Word document into a text editor and to then copy and paste text from that into your Xara design.
Acorn

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Sadly not possible or at least not practical.
Two of the languages are Czech and Slovak which I can't read or understand.
I need to have the original layout, so I know what goes where.

@Wolfgang, export the MS Word document to PDF. Copy & Paste from PDF into your XDA is plain text and can easily be made form the shown layout.
You will have to then manage replacing line breaks with a space but quite mechanical if you work from the bottom up.

Acorn

I agree with Wolfgang. There are always work-arounds but setting a default could be very useful, especially when working on a long document or book.

I've moved this to Dear Xara.

@Gary, I am with you and @behzad who also asked for this a time back.

There are wishes and wants. This is a wish where you await Xara's largesse.
I was hoping to achieve an outcome with something tangible.

Acorn

Acorn, thanks for your help and suggestions. But as you rightly said, PDF messes with line breaks and I fear this would be way more work and potential for error than doing it the cumbersome way and chosing Plain text all the time.

If it's not possible now, it's not possible at all to me.
I'd be very surprised if I would ever buy another piece of Xara software. Something really major would have to change there and since it did not happen in the last 25 years I am not holding my breath.

I need unformatted text all the time and use a very simple tray utility, PureText. You copy any text and only have to click the PureText tray icon to have all rich formatting removed. You can also assign a hotkey for this. https://stevemiller.net/puretext

that looks rather useful boy, thanks - I see you can install it on win10 from windows store

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boy

I need unformatted text all the time and use a very simple tray utility, PureText. You copy any text and only have to click the PureText tray icon to have all rich formatting removed. You can also assign a hotkey for this. https://stevemiller.net/puretext

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That is a great tip, thank you very much!

UPDATE: Boy's tip pointed me to the right direction. Upon downloading, I remembered that I recently bought the wonderful Rainclip. I've been using it just as a clipboard manager, but what do you know, it also offers pasting of clean text just like PureText and I already have it installed.
My problem is kind of solved, though in a different way that I thought.

If you need a versatile clipboard manager, I highly recommend this one: https://rainclip.net/
(I am not affiliated in any way)

Cheers
Wolfgang

Hi all,
We are happy to capture this as a feature improvement. Is the request that when the paste popup appears with the various options, you can set one as the default paste on this document so it does not need to be presented on the remaining paste operations?

Unformatted text
Rich Text Format
HTML format

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MB365

Hi all,
We are happy to capture this as a feature improvement. Is the request that when the paste popup appears with the various options, you can set one as the default paste on this document so it does not need to be presented on the remaining paste operations?

Unformatted text
Rich Text Format
HTML format

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Exactly that. At least for me.

A big + from here! PLS go for it.
The same problem is when exporting.
It would be useful if Xara would remember the last selection made like e. g. “full page” and I would not have to confirm again and again.

I am against this until it can be shown that the override to a reselection of the other options is easily reached.

At present, I can achieve what Wolfgang wants by pressing U-Enter when the pop-up Paste Special Dialog box is presented:

• R - pastes Rich Text Format, if offered
• H - pastes HTML format, if offered
• U - pastes Unformatted Text
• E - pastes Enhanced Metafile, if offered

A possible cleaner approach might be a right-click for the Text context menu with a new mandatory entry Paste Text that always pastes unformatted text (Keypress: Menu-T).

On this matter, I find following a first Paste of a copied selection, subsequent Pastes keep that Paste Special selection.
For a given copy I may want Unformatted Text for the words and HTML format for the graphic.

Acorn

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MB365

Hi all,
We are happy to capture this as a feature improvement. Is the request that when the paste popup appears with the various options, you can set one as the default paste on this document so it does not need to be presented on the remaining paste operations?

Unformatted text
Rich Text Format
HTML format

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I don't need it because I use the PureText utility also for other apps, so it's part of my standard workflow.