Pasting content from websites as Markdown

[Stephane-30]

This on might be a bit more difficult to implement or even controversial. From other note taking apps I've used in the past the following behaviour was standard. I copy a section from a website and paste it into a new note. One can paste as plain text or as Markdown. If Markdown is chosen the note displays the copied section with its formatting (important to keep lists, tables, images, code blocks etc in place). UpNote is one of those tools and I've used it for a long time. However, data is stored on a foreign server and that was key reason to look for a different tool. Joplin has the option to paste as Markdown as well.

At the moment PN only pastes the plain text of the website and all the formatting is lost (whether I paste into a HTML or Markdown note)

I personally prefer Markdown for all my notes as it is easier to edit, but I'm aware that some prefer HTML. In a future version of PN I would like to see the functionality of pasting copied sections from websites as Markdown so to keep all the formatting.

Select and copy section from website:

1. Paste as Markdown into new note by default
2. or paste with the option of plain or Markdown via key stroke (CTRL-V and CTRL-SHIFT-V)
3. or right click and select option (Paste... or Paste as Markdown...).

Please correct me if I missed an existing option or got it completely wrong.

[tlibouban]

Hi Stephan,

This could be a great feature ! Could that be pasted depending on note's format md or html ?

I guest if your note is in html format you'd rather keep on html the pasted text, whereas if it's a Markdown note md would fit better ?

Would that make sens ?

[Stephane-30]

I would assume that copied text from a website will have HTML formatting. But it is a matter of how to paste the buffer. One has an option to paste as plain text [CTRL-SHIFT-V] or as HTML [CTRL-V]. I guess when pasting into a Markdown document the buffer needs to be converted on the fly from HTML to Markdown. That is my understanding.

As PN distinguishes between HTML and Markdown notes (some other note taking apps allow both formats within in the same note) it should be straight forward.

1. Paste as HTML in a HTML note.
2. Convert to Markdown and paste into Markdown note (keeping as much formatting as possible ie. colours, lists, tables, code blocks, headers, images etc).

In both cases a normal CTRL-V should do.

[timothepoznanski]

Hello! I'm surprised you mentioned that copying a web page and pasting it into an HTML note loses all the formatting. When I created Poznote about 10 years ago, one of my top priorities was to be able to copy HTML content and paste it into a Poznote HTML note while preserving as much of the original formatting as possible. In fact, Markdown notes didn't even exist in Poznote back then, they were added later thanks to community contributions. So pasting into an HTML note should work quite well.

Also, have you noticed the option in the HTML note toolbar that lets you convert an HTML note directly to Markdown, and vice versa? It's not perfect, but it works not too bad. 😊

[Stephane-30]

I feel a bit bad now, but really, it's not working as expected. I have attached a few screenshots to demonstrate the effect. I'm fully aware of the convert option but if the HTML isn't correct the Markdown won't be either. I have also used different browsers to test the HTML paste, but that didn't make any difference.

I copied the centre section from https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_tables.asp this page and I would assume that this has clean and valid HTML:

I then pasted this into a Markdown editor called MarkText (https://github.com/marktext/marktext):

...and into UpNote:

... and into Poznote (new HTML note):

UpNote does the best job and keeps the 'Define an HTML Table' section as it should be.
In PN there seems to be no formatting at all.
Sorry Tim, but that's just what happens here.

[timothepoznanski]

Don't feel bad it's just a discussion. 😊

I wasn't saying that you can paste HTML directly into a Markdown note. What I meant is that Poznote has always supported pasting HTML directly into a PN HTML note (not a Markdown note). See video below.

At the moment, Poznote doesn't automatically convert pasted HTML into Markdown when you're editing a Markdown note. However, as shown in my video below, the conversion only takes about 30 seconds. It's not perfect yet, but it's improving over time and already works quite well.

[Stephane-30]

You know it's not about the Markdown pasting at the moment. It's about the pasting of HTML content into a HTML note. Please try selecting the whole centre column including the link to YouTube and paste this into a HTML note.

[timothepoznanski]

Ok I thought you were talking about "center section" as the middle of the page (as you can see in my video example) and not the "center column". I tried the full column and you are right it is not working as expected (even if it is working on a smaller section). I don't know yet why but I will investigate. Also, I tried to copy past a full Wikipedia page and it is working.

In PN:

[timothepoznanski]

New release available that should fix this issue. 😊