paste unformatted
Asked by curmudgeon:

Is there a way to paste unformatted text in confluence wiki?

Normally CTRL-SHIFT-V does it in other programs (like this form), but that doesn't paste anything in the confluence wiki pages.


Answers:
author: Shawn C
body: Hi Derrick,

I'm afraid that the Confluence Editor does not allow us to 'shift paste' to add unformatted text as it's mapped to the "Paste Table Rows" function.

There is a Feature Request to change this functionailty: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-28229>

As a workaround, you can disable Paste Table Row module so that it'll instead paste content as plaintext:

* Go to Confluence Administration and Locate the **Manage Add-ons/Plugins**
* Change the 2nd Dropdown to "System" and Search for "Confluence Keyboard Shortcuts Plugin"
* Expand the Selection, expand Modules
* Locate "Paste Table Row (tinymce.table.paste.row)" and disable it

Disabling this Module will impact your ability to Paste Table Rows via keyboard shortcut, but the function will still work by clicking on the button on the toolbar.

![PasteTableRow.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/32896iC712CD64DA6F7EB8/image-dimensions/385x120?v=v2 "PasteTableRow.png")

If it's not something that we can disable, we'll need to paste the content into a plaintext editor and then copy/paste it from there.

Regards,  
Shawn

comments: author: curmudgeon
body: Thanks for the information Shawn.

It seems this has been a bug since 2013 but nobody has bothered to fix it. That has to be a record.

I don't have administrator rights, so I can't use your suggested fix. Instead I'll paste it into a real editor and then copy the plain text, then paste it into the Confluence editor.


author: Frank Zehelein
body: [@curmudgeon](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1999061) You can use right click and Paste as Plain Text in Chrome - that way it is still super annoying but at least faster.

[@Shawn C](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/502249) is this option not available in the cloud version? I have admin rights but it shows "Module cannot be modified". Any other way to change it?


author: Michael
body: I have the same issue. I have admin rights but **Paste Table Row** states "Module cannot be modified".

This bug goes well beyond annoying - it's extremely expensive as it doubles the time to do nearly every data entry task in Confluence.


author: Matt_Callanan
body: The keyboard-only solution I use for plain text pasting within a Confluence page is to first paste and cut via the Search bar (still annoying but slightly more productive than using the mouse):

* Cmd+F (pause for half a second or however long Find bar takes to appear)
* Cmd+V
* Cmd+A
* Cmd+X
* Esc
* Cmd+V

(Replace Cmd with Ctrl for Windows)


author: m-metz
body: You can also do the following in Chrome:

Right click, click "Paste as Plain Text" (The hotkey won't work as outlined in this issue)

For the plugin, "Paste Table Row (tinymce.table.paste.row)" Is it possible to change the hotkey instead of disabling it?


author: granticusiv
body: I'm looking forward to a solution to this too. Half the content I'm entering into Confluence is copied from PHPStorm. I can't ctrl+v because it brings in the IDE's formatting, so I have to continually right click -\> Paste as plain text.


author: Shaun
body: I've shared a Javascript bookmarklet that you can use to disable the Confluence editor override of Ctrl-Shift-V in this answer:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Re-Is-there-a-shortcut-for-Paste-as-Plain-Text-in-Chrome/qaq-p/1324995/comment-id/170523#M170523>


author: Peter Valdemar M?rch
body: "you can disable Paste Table Row module..."

What do I do if I'm not an administrator?


author: Michael Dav?
body: Atlassian seems to specialize in breaking all manner of records for fixing bugs. I've worked in the computer industry for 30 years and I have yet to see this level of dysfunction and utter contempt and disregard for customers. Its ironic that they design tools to enable Agile and yet fail to even consider one of the basic 4 principles of the Agile Manifestor namely "Responding to customers over following a plan".  

I wonder why companies pay for products to a company that has such callous attitude to its customers.


author: Justin Alexander
body: The method of using Microsoft Power Toys \> Ctrl+Win+Alt+V key(s) worked for me. Yeah, too bad about the little niggles not getting fixed. I guess their bulk efforts are going into DataCenter.


author: OlegY
body: On Macs, there is a built-in MacOS feature to paste plain text, by removing original formatting. The hotkey combination is Command + Option + Shift + V  
The command works independently of the text origin and insertion destination.

comments: author: mike @ mindbridge
body: This works perfectly in MacOS ... and is way better than having to have admin rights (I mean really?!) or switching browser (again, really!?).

All you have to do is maybe switch OS o_0

Again, WTH Confluence?


author: ahoward
body: This continues to be an issue for me. It's surprising to me that such a basic problem with a seemingly obvious fix remains unsolved. This thread is marked as "solved" and I would disagree with that.

comments: author: Valentin Dimitrov
body: +1, It has been 10 years now since people are complaining about this. Another broken record.


author: risto
body: I cannot get any of the above suggestions to work, but I found a trick that seems to work:

- From the Insert menu, select "Code Snippet"

- Paste your text into it: It will be inside a gray box with line numbers.

- Go to the beginning of the gray box (i.e. inside the box right after "1" in the first line).

- Hit "Delete" key twice: it removes the gray box and the line numbers, and your text remains unformatted on the page, as it should be.

comments: author: Akshay Jain
body: [@risto](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4749788) Thanks. it worked for me


author: els-timp
body: Wat?


author: Dimitar Genov
body: I believe that I have found an actual solution without admin rights or modifying settings or using fancy macros/extensions whatever:  

In "Edit" mode, type at least one char of regular plaintext at the point you want to paste your external text or set the cursor on already present such text. Paste normally (ctrl+v / right mouse menu "Paste", etc...). Viola! Just don't forget to delete the chars you've typed before the paste (if any).  

It seems this is still an issue, as I am having the same problem on a modern confluence version.