Copy and Paste: get blank lines

[Patrick Holmes]

Often when I copy from an email (using Outlook 2003) and paste it into a PL/SQL Developer SQL window, or vice-versa when I copy from a PL/SQL Developer SQL window into an email message, when I paste, I get blank lines.

So if I copy:
-- 04/27/2010 PDH
CREATE ROLE adminapp;
GRANT ALL ON casem.admins_app TO adminapp;
GRANT adminapp TO casez;

when I paste, I get:
-- 04/27/2010 PDH
[blank line]
CREATE ROLE adminapp;
[blank line]
GRANT ALL ON casem.admins_app TO adminapp;
[blank line]
GRANT adminapp TO casez;

i.e. I get a blank line between each line. If I paste to a simple text editor (e.g. TextPad) or MS-Word, I don't get the blank lines. In fact, my work-around is to paste into MS-Word, then re-copy, so I have to copy/open-MS-Word/paste/copy/paste--more than twice as much work. That "fixes" the problem. But this is driving me a little crazy and slows me down--probably happens daily. I have not figured out what causes it, but when it does happen the syntax color-coding is retained.

If you can't fix this problem or don't have a faster work-around, perhaps you could add options to the Edit menu for "Copy Text-Only" and "Paste Text-Only", or something like that. (For a comparison, note that MS-Word, MS-Excel and other programs have a "Paste Special" option which allows for various kinds of pasting.)

thanks,
pat holmes

 

[Marco Kalter]

I think this is an Outlook issue. Its built-in HTML editor is quite awful.

Have you enabled the option to use MS Word as e-mail editor in Outlook?

 

[Patrick Holmes]

I don't use MS-Word as an email editor. My notes indicate that if I use MS-Word as the email editor then I can NOT use "Signatures" which I really like using. I guess I'll search for an alternative Outlook editor.

Having said that, if it is easy for you to do, you might consider this an enhancement request to add "Copy-as-Text" and "Paste-as-Text" menu options. It's a low priority, but something to consider especially if some other users complain about the same problem.

Thanks!
pat holmes

 

[Marco Kalter]

If you go to the \SpecialCopy directory you can create a "Plain text.copy" file. This file should contain the following line:

+ #13#10 +

Now, if you right-click on a selection and click on the "Special Copy" sub menu, you will see a new "Plain text" option.

 

[Patrick Holmes]

This is the contents of
C:\Program Files\PLSQL Developer\SpecialCopy\Plain text.copy:
============================================
;PL/SQL Developer SpecialCopy definition
; for first line
; for all other lines
; for last line
;
+ #13#10 +
============================================

but I got the text below after first doing special-copy/"plain text" then pasting into an email message or into TextPad:
============================================
GRANT ALL ON casem.health_profs TO help_desk; + #13#10 +
GRANT ALL ON casem.ipcm_users TO help_desk; + #13#10 +
GRANT ALL ON casem.ipcm_user_regions TO help_desk; + #13#10 +
============================================

What am I doing wrong?

 

[Marco Kalter]

My mistake, it should just be: