[pmwiki-users] Copy and paste do not work properly with MS office 2007

[Peter & Melodye Bowers]

> What browser are you using?  Can you identify exactly what
> text you're attempting to copy and paste so I can try to duplicate
> the problem on my system?

I can confirm that on Frank's link (below) using FireFox 2.0.0.14 and MSWord 2003 when I copy/pasted the first text below it messed up the order of words in the sentence.  When I copy/pasted it into my text editor (gvim) the order of the text is maintained. 

When I viewed source and copy/pasted the whole page into my local system the problem goes away.  

All quite mystifying to me.  For those of you who haven't looked at the page there are all kinds of special characters littered around.  Lots of >>>> and <<<< and % and [ and \\\\ and stuff like that.  I note in particular that double-quotes are not converted into smart-quotes and that seems to be the character around which the first issue revolves.  The 2nd issue revolves around the % at the beginning of the line...

Here's some of the HTML source surrounding each problem:

===(snip)===
<p>&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; 
</p><p class="vspace">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="vspace">&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Library should help to let all studens feel as one the p[ecknology and the personnel. No question is too small or no challange too big. A respect for all and ideas and  "things" shared.Free access to faculty . The Library shoud be in on all new ideas and have access to the newest technology at close hand. A free exchange of feelings and ideas .
<br>=======
<br> ////////////////
===(snip)===
(The paragraph starting "The Library" is all one line in the HTML source)

===(snip)===
<br>=======
<br>&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; 
<br>&gt;
<br>&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 
<br>%study .    looking for books .  looking for dvds.
<br>=======
<br>&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 
<br>&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 
<br>&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; 
===(snip)===

I think the next step is to simplify the page until you are down to a minimal example that reproduces the issue.  (I.e., cut the first half of the page, then half of what remains, etc and check after each edit to make sure that the problem continues -- when the problem goes away then paste back the just-deleted text and delete the other half and by means of this method try to get it down to just a few lines with the problem reproduced.

-Peter

> > >>> "Frank Scaturro" <scaturro at adelphi.edu> 5/6/2008 7:38 AM >>>
> > 
> > Sorry, I forgot to include the web page that this is 
> happening on. The first problem (ideas and "things"...) is 
> near the bottom of this web page:
> > http://web.adelphi.edu/fs/index.php?n=Main.APLACEWHERE 
> > >
> > > Copy and past does not seem to work with this line of text....
> > >      ideas and"things" shared.Free access to faculty . 
> > > 
> > > I get this when I past it into MSword...
> > >     "things" shared.Free access to faculty .ideas and
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > SAME THING...for this...
> > >      %study .looking for books .looking for dvds. 
> > > 
> > > turns out to be....
> > > looking for dvds.looking for books .%study .