Word 365 and default paste behavior

[britechguy]

For decades now, the default paste behavior in MS-Word has been to retain source formatting, and you're presented with an option after paste that allows you to merge formatting or keep text only.

A blind user on one of the groups I'm on is reporting that when he pastes the copy of a webpage into Word 365, it is not retaining the headings for the page, but is retaining everything else. I cannot replicate the issue using any web browser along with Word 2016, and that's whether or not I'm doing the selection with or without the involvement of a screen reader to do so.

Is there any logical explanation for this? I know that there have been a few small changes in default behaviors in 365, but I would not have expected this to be among them. And that it's only headings that seem to vanish is even more peculiar.

I thought I'd turn to the cohort to see what the collective wisdom is about this situation.

 

[Sky-Knight]

It's probably the site itself... CSS and Javascript both have the ability to manipulate what the browser puts into the clipboard. And sadly most websites don't have the proper encoding to support non-visual users, so all sorts of strange things happen. This is even more true if there are image elements in the selected block before the copy is made, and Heaven help you if the code is organized differently than you'd see it.

I'd need the specific site(s) the user is trying to copy to test further.

 

[britechguy]

I can give you a specific webpage: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-3rd-december-2021/

I've used it in my testing with "the usual sighted way" of doing a full page copy and paste as well as using the screen reader way under Edge, Brave, and Firefox.

Works like a charm for me each and every time. Headings are present in the pasted-into Word document.

 

[fincoder]

Maybe the user is referring to the web page title that's only displayed in the browser tab and not rendered in the page content. The "title" of the website you linked is "NV Access | In-Process 3rd December 2021", which is different from the websites heading in the page content.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Hmm...

File -> Options
This stuff look normal?

Specifically the pasting from other programs dropdown?

 

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight

See this post: https://nvda.groups.io/g/chat/message/3903

Quentin is no slouch, and too many people have now had the issue (and I slightly misunderstood it as well, but clarity is available by reading a couple of other posts in the topic).

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy I'm experiencing the same thing he is!

When I copy and paste that stack of headers off the W3C site into word, I wind up with a word replication of the site, Heading 1 - 6 all appear, and they all appear in different sizes. Word further makes the collapsible bullet points that allow me to expand and collapse the heading structure as expected.

HOWEVER, when I click on any of the text entries that say Heading, a quick glance at the top shows normal styling. I have to select the text and then click the correct styling to get word to reflect the correct style.

This appears to be a bug in Word, it's processing the paste correctly and applying the appropriate local style but not maintaining the attribute.

 

[Sky-Knight]

On second attempt, it looks like the horizontal rule HTML element is breaking Word's paste converter.

It's a very faint line, I've circled it in the attached screen cap.

If I select items below that line, I get expected Word paste behavior with styles intact, if I select next above as I did in this screen grab, I get pasted output with the incorrect indicated style as I mentioned above. The visual behavior of the paste is correct, but the selected style for that heading in word is not.

 

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight

Thanks for the confirmation, which I will pass along.

Like I said, Quentin is no slouch, and when he says something I have never once had any reason to doubt it. He does both his homework and his testing.

 

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight ,

FYI, NVAccess now has Microsoft looped in too.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Sky-Knight ,

FYI, NVAccess now has Microsoft looped in too.

Good stuff, because it's definitely bug report time!

Oh if you need it I'm using Word Version 2102 Build 13801.21050 64bit.