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copy from Firefox, paste into Thunderbird does not include formatting

  • 9 uphendule
  • 8 zinale nkinga
  • 25 views
  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu Jared

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This has worked for years, until this morning. Not sure what I did or how to fix it.

When I copy from Firefox and paste into a Thunderbird message, I cannot get it to bring formatting ie Ctl-V works the same as Ctl-Shift-V

I can successfully copy from IE and paste with formatting into T'bird

I can successfully copy from Firefox into a Word document and then copy/paste from the Word document with formatting into T'bird

Suggestions?

This has worked for years, until this morning. Not sure what I did or how to fix it. When I copy from Firefox and paste into a Thunderbird message, I cannot get it to bring formatting ie Ctl-V works the same as Ctl-Shift-V I can successfully copy from IE and paste with formatting into T'bird I can successfully copy from Firefox into a Word document and then copy/paste from the Word document with formatting into T'bird Suggestions?

All Replies (9)

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Hi DougInToronto, I notice you have Firefox 45.

There was a change in Firefox 44 to eliminate some old plain text formats previously placed on the clipboard and that change had to be undone in Firefox 45 because users of Word 97 and CorelDraw said those applications could not paste any of the newer formats. Somewhere in that process, something else might have changed.

If you paste into another HTML-aware application besides Thunderbird, does the application receive formatted HTML or just plain text?

For example, do you have Microsoft Word 2007 or higher?

If you want to experiment within Firefox, you can switch a web page to being editable. To do that:

Open Firefox's web console in the lower part of the tab using either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+k
  • "3-bar" menu button > Developer > Web Console
  • (menu bar) Tools menu > Web Developer > Web Console

Then paste the following code at the bottom next to the caret (>>) and press Enter to run it:

document.body.setAttribute("contenteditable", "true");

You then can close the web console and the body of the document should be editable so you can paste in the copied HTML and see what happens.

(Note: to return the page to normal, reload it. The change is only temporary.)

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Thanks jscher2000

Yes, copy/paste with formatting from Firefox 45 into Microsoft Word works fine.

Also, I can copy OK with formatting from IE into T'bird, and from Word into T'Bird.

For some reason cannot from FF into T'bird.

I shut everything down, restarted. Same issue.

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I don't have Thunderbird on this computer to test, so hopefully another volunteer can get to the bottom of it.

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Thanks jscher2000

My limited testing suggests that T'bird is testing the source of the material to be pasted and if FF, then not allowing "formatted paste" but that is just my current thinking.

I did try it with plugins disabled on both FF and t'bird.

....doug

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The developers are researching the details of this bug and how to fix it. (No. 1254980) For the time being, pasting into an intermediary application, selecting the HTML there, and copying it again before pasting into Thunderbird appears to be the only workaround.


Or if you find it easier to launch the page in IE and copy from there, you can use the Open in IE extension as a way to speed up that process: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/open-in-ie/

Okulungisiwe ngu jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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I have this problem too. After the update to Firefox 45, copy/paste to T'bird does not work. I am running Windows 10.

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Hi ajared, this problem will be fixed in Thunderbird 45.0 when that is released. I don't know the planned release date, but late April or sometime in May seems most likely based on past schedules.

If you wanted to switch to Thunderbird 45 while it is still undergoing beta testing, you could, but if you can tolerate using a workaround for the time being, waiting is probably a better overall choice.

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Thanks. Will wait for Thunderbird 45.0 to release.