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Thursday
March 18, 2010 Since 1922 |
How to copy text from the Internet
By Aaron Barbee
Contributor Published July 5, 2009 Question: Every time I copy and paste something from the Internet to my Word document, it gets all messed up. How can I get only the words I’m after? I’ve been just typing everything I want to get, because I don’t know what else to do.
Answer: Web pages rely on little codes between the lines to show the site as it’s intended. When browsing the Internet you can click on the top menu, VIEW and then SOURCE (or PAGE SOURCE if you use Firefox). This will show you all that confusing code I’m talking about. What you are seeing is the code that controls exactly how it’s supposed to look.
Some programs understand bits and pieces of that code, and other programs don’t. When you copy from a Web site, you are inadvertently copying some of that “formatting” code along with the text you are after. As the information is pasted, the formatting code gets pasted too. So, if the program kind of understands it, it tries to apply the code. The problem is, it’s only part of the code and you don’t want any of it. That’s when things look goofy.
The best thing to do is to paste into a program that has no idea what that code is. As a result, the program will dismiss the code and you’ll get only the words and sentences that it does recognize. The program that does all this is called NOTEPAD. It’s a very simple program that lets you type things up, and it’s built into all Windows-based computers.
To run NOTEPAD, just click on START, then RUN, and type: NOTEPAD and hit enter.
Paste the information into notepad, and then select EDIT, SELECT ALL. Choose EDIT, COPY and you’ll copy the code-free text into memory. Paste what you just copied into wherever you’re ultimately working with.
It is a couple extra steps, but it’s the quickest and easiest way to do what you’re after. Once you do it a few times, you’ll get the hang of it. Eventually you’ll be such a pro at it, it won’t be anything at all to do this.
I hope you guys had a great Fourth of July!
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.
Contributor Published July 5, 2009 Question: Every time I copy and paste something from the Internet to my Word document, it gets all messed up. How can I get only the words I’m after? I’ve been just typing everything I want to get, because I don’t know what else to do.
Answer: Web pages rely on little codes between the lines to show the site as it’s intended. When browsing the Internet you can click on the top menu, VIEW and then SOURCE (or PAGE SOURCE if you use Firefox). This will show you all that confusing code I’m talking about. What you are seeing is the code that controls exactly how it’s supposed to look.
Some programs understand bits and pieces of that code, and other programs don’t. When you copy from a Web site, you are inadvertently copying some of that “formatting” code along with the text you are after. As the information is pasted, the formatting code gets pasted too. So, if the program kind of understands it, it tries to apply the code. The problem is, it’s only part of the code and you don’t want any of it. That’s when things look goofy.
The best thing to do is to paste into a program that has no idea what that code is. As a result, the program will dismiss the code and you’ll get only the words and sentences that it does recognize. The program that does all this is called NOTEPAD. It’s a very simple program that lets you type things up, and it’s built into all Windows-based computers.
To run NOTEPAD, just click on START, then RUN, and type: NOTEPAD and hit enter.
Paste the information into notepad, and then select EDIT, SELECT ALL. Choose EDIT, COPY and you’ll copy the code-free text into memory. Paste what you just copied into wherever you’re ultimately working with.
It is a couple extra steps, but it’s the quickest and easiest way to do what you’re after. Once you do it a few times, you’ll get the hang of it. Eventually you’ll be such a pro at it, it won’t be anything at all to do this.
I hope you guys had a great Fourth of July!
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.