Copy & paste -> extra space

users
#1

Hello everybody

I noticed that when I copy & paste single words or phrases, that MOST -
but not ALL - times an additional space is added before the pasted
word/phrase.
Let's say, I type an opening quotation mark and then copy some text
immediately after it. Even though I selected precisely one word without
any spaces, after pasting there is ALMOST ALWAYS an extra space in front
of it.
(Sometimes not, but I was not yet able to figure out why and under which
conditions this happens.)

In the example above:
" test ..."
Then I have to go back and delete that extra space manually.
Very annoying!

Is there a way to change this behavior?

Thank you in advance
Thomas

#2

I noticed that when I copy & paste single words or phrases, that MOST - but not ALL - times an additional space is added before the pasted word/phrase. Let's say, I type an opening quotation mark and then copy some text immediately after it. Even though I selected precisely one word without any spaces, after pasting there is ALMOST ALWAYS an extra space in front of it. (Sometimes not, but I was not yet able to figure out why and under which conditions this happens.)

In the example above:
" test ..."
Then I have to go back and delete that extra space manually. Very annoying!

I imagine that this is by design: if you paste multiple single words, for example, they will be separated by spaces (and thus easier to handle) instead of being concatenated. Typically, pasting words is most commonly used to insert a word into a sentence - when spaces would be welcome.

Is there a way to change this behavior?

Yes: as so often, Paste Special is your friend! Use Edit | Paste Special... (or Ctrl+Shift+V) instead of ordinary Paste. In the Paste Special dialogue, select either "Unformatted text" or "Formatted text [RTF]" (if you want to retain formatting).

Incidentally, I wondered why I hadn't encountered this problem, and I see I was probably using what would be another workaround in your example. You are likely to need a closing quotation mark after your word or phrase, of course. If you type this immediately after the opening quotation mark and only then paste in the word, you appear not to get any unhelpful extra spaces.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker