How can I paste text as if it had been typed?
Asked by Peter Keller:

When I try to paste plain text into a Confluence page (in this case copied from a non-HTML e-mail), it inserts the text as a code block with line numbers. How can I paste text as text? If this is not possible in the train wreck of the Fabric editor, is it at least possible to turn the line numbers off?


Answers:
author: Ste Wright
body: Hi [@Peter Keller](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3652953)

Can you share a screenshot of this?

I just tried this with a few different emails and it just copies it in as normal text for me :)

Have you tried with a few different emails? Or perhaps copying this specific text into notepad / word - and then copying it into Confluence?

Ste

comments: author: Peter Keller
body: I found that after pasting into LibreOffice Writer and re-wrapping the paragraphs, I get something more sensible, so I managed to get what I needed to do sorted out. However, a "normal" user would find this impossible and just give up. It seems that the Fabric editor attempts to auto-detect the format and it decides whether to paste as code or text without any possibility of the user influencing that choice. The factor that seems to be key here is that the e-mail was formatted as plain text, with LF characters indicating end-of-line rather than paragraph breaks. This happens with plain-text mailers like mutt or Alpine.

I've attached some screenshots which show:

1. Just before pasting text
2. Source of copied text (the screenshot shows Thunderbird, but the draft text was created with Alpine)
3. Just after pasting text
4. What happens if I click the feedback button to point out the problem :-(

Note that even if I did want to paste something as code, I don't have any control over the starting line number (unlike in the old editor). The hang when I click "Feedback" is just adding insult to injury: the only way out of this is to kill the tab and resume my work from "Drafts". There is so much going wrong here that it is difficult to know where to start. Frankly, I can't conceive of any circumstances where I would use Confluence for a new project, or even suggest to anyone that they look at it.

![Confluence-Fabric-before-paste.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85795i15EB58363B9481D4/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-before-paste.png")![Confluence-Fabric-paste-source.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85796iA63C0771067F1870/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-paste-source.png")![Confluence-Fabric-after-paste.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85797i22C4BF3965CCA8AA/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-after-paste.png")![Confluence-Fabric-feedback-hang.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85798iC863BD2B15342CA3/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-feedback-hang.png")


author: Peter Keller
body: I found that after pasting into LibreOffice Writer and re-wrapping the paragraphs, I get something more sensible, so I managed to get what I needed to do sorted out. However, a "normal" user would find this impossible and just give up. It seems that the Fabric editor attempts to auto-detect the format and it decides whether to paste as code or text without any possibility of the user influencing that choice. The factor that seems to be key here is that the e-mail was formatted as plain text, with LF characters indicating end-of-line rather than paragraph breaks. This happens with plain-text mailers like mutt or Alpine.

I have tried several times to attach some screenshots, but even this instance of the editor is so awful that I haven't managed to do it successfully without losing this text - sorry.

Note that even if I did want to paste something as code, I don't have any control over the starting line number (unlike in the old editor). The fact that the browser hangs when I click "Feedback" is just adding insult to injury: the only way out of this is to kill the tab and resume my work from "Drafts". There is so much going wrong here that it is difficult to know where to start. Frankly, I can't conceive of any circumstances where I would use Confluence for a new project, or even suggest to anyone that they look at it.


author: Peter Keller
body: Trying again to get the screenshots uploaded.....

![Confluence-Fabric-paste-source.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85814iAC59863420E300C7/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-paste-source.png")![Confluence-Fabric-feedback-hang.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85813iBF1A7462B8E15B3E/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-feedback-hang.png")![Confluence-Fabric-after-paste.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85812i0D96B1C6AB7DE12D/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-after-paste.png")![Confluence-Fabric-before-paste.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/85811i82D3CE1218468EE1/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Confluence-Fabric-before-paste.png")


author: Romain VUILLEZ
body: I experienced the same issue, but found that right-click "paste and match style" allowed to paste as if I typed it in.  
Cheers


Tags: confluence-cloud