Cannot Paste within Fantasy Grounds (Mac osx)

[noelyuk]

Hi there

I cannot copy and paste into Fantasy Grounds on my mac. I seem to recall before that I needed to copy and paste using cmd + C and then paste using ctrl + v but this no longer works. I am trying to simply copy some text from a pdf into a new module. But while the text will definitely copy to the clipboard I see no way of pasting said clipboard item into my FG module. Neither CMD + V or CTRL + V work. As soon as I press control (ctrl) the shortcut buttons along the bottom of the screen all change from 1 - 12 to C1 - C12. Have the keyboard commands changed? I hope someone can help me because i'm in the middle of editing a campaign. I know I managed to copy and paste before but now cannot. It's very frustrating. :( Thanks in advance for your help.

Noely

[damned]

Are you running any AntiVirus?
Several times we have seen WebRoot blocking the copy/paste of data into Fantasy Grounds (and other applications)...

[noelyuk]

Hi there Damned. No antivirus. It's almost as though though the keyboard controls have been remapped. When YOU press the ctrl buttton on your mac do the shortcut buttons along the bottom of FG change? I don't remember it doing this before.

[Trenloe]

The shortcut buttons along the bottom changing is fine, that's expected.

Where are you trying to paste to? If it is a story entry or an NPC, make sure that the record is unlocked.

[krag]

I've lately had the same issue when it comes to my mac and putting together my Rappan Athuk campaign. If I copy small amounts of text, it'll work, however there are times it doesn't at all, and I am forced to physically type the entirety of the story page.

Yes, my Mac has the bottom shortcut bar change every time I am pasting any script into FG.

[noelyuk]

I'm trying to paste into a story entry. Wherever I try to paste to I get no success. If I try to manually type text into the story it works. But pasting text that I know is on the clipboard doesn't. Does that mean it's unlocked already? If not how do I unlock it? Sorry for the trouble.

[krag]

Yes, it's unlocked, and as I said before, you aren't alone :P

[noelyuk]

Well not that it's much of a consolation to you Krag but i'm glad i'm not alone in this. I thought I was going mad and had imagined it. Strange that it has happened all of a sudden. I've been on vacation for a few weeks but it definitely worked a month or so ago. Is this due to an update perhaps? And in any case is there some way we can report the problem to FG?

[noelyuk]

Having tried several times I've now discovered that mine is exactly the same as your problem Krag. A couple of times I have successfully managed to copy and paste some text and other times (even using the same portion of text) I cannot :(

[krag]

Welcome to the suck, brother. I hope you have a fast typing capability.

[Trenloe]

Are you copying from a source within wineskin or outside of it?

[noelyuk]

I'm trying to copy text from a pdf on my mac to a story entry within my module. A month or so ago I could do this no problem. By using cmd + C to copy the text and Ctrl + V to paste it into the story. Now 99% of the time I cannot paste anything and 1% of the time I have been able to. It's baffling.

[Zeus]

Is this the Steam version of FG on OSX or is this FG running under regular Wineskin we are taking about here guys?

[noelyuk]

Hi Zeus

Sorry I guess I should have clarified. Yes this is the Steam Version of FG on OSX.

[Zeus]

Hmm. I'm not able to reproduce this with a fresh 5E campaign whether its the Steam version or not. I'm cutting content from a PDF with Cmd-C and pasting it in FG with Ctrl-V. I tried it in Stories, Notes and the chat window. What am I missing or doing differently guys?

[noelyuk]

I don't know. Like I said Zeus it has worked for me very occasionally. But fails more than it works so it's too frustrating to use. Krag appears to have the same problem so I know it's not just me. Not sure whether he is using Steam version also. In any case i've emailed steam support. In the meantime I decided to try and run the par5e program you created Zeus. Is it possible for me to use that to at least enter in all the text. Once inputted I imagine I'd be able to format it. But having said that I'm not sure how to even run it. When I double click the par5e icon. Nothing happens. Do I need to have something else installed before it will open?

[krag]

I installed wineskin on my computer, however couldn't get it to work, so I installed the steam version. Now it seems to have a weird hybrid (go to the program through steamapps, right click the program, than open program to find a C: drive in wineskin.

It's weird, and if I knew macs better, I'd delete the everliving crap out of wineskin, never seemed to work for me anyhow.

[ddavison]

I've been experimenting with this today and I see what you are experiencing. Fantasy Grounds only supports pasting of plain text and unfortunately, there are a number of different ctrl characters, hidden HTML and more in many sources that you may want to paste from. I played around with a couple different options to remap shortcut keys to Paste and Match Style; however, the best solution for me was to locate and install an application called PlainClip. Once installed, you can open the application with the Shift key down to set the preferences and configure it for the first time. This puts one additional step in the process to copy and paste into FG but it allows you to paste from any source (so far as I can tell.)

https://www.bluem.net/en/mac/plain-clip/

New copy and paste process:


Highlight text you want and press Command+C
Launch PlainClip (it runs without an interface and normally finishes immediately)
Place your cursor in FG where you want it and press CTRL+V



With that setup, I was able to paste entire sections, including HTML, directly from d20pfsrd into FG.

-Doug

[krag]

Thanks for trying to find the issue ddavison, I haven't tried it yet, but I'll get back to you on it whether it fixes the issue for myself.

Is there any possibility that further down the road, FG will either A. Do this itself, or B. Accept more text types, or C. This won't be an issue anymore?

[noelyuk]

Hey Doug. You're a legend.

You've just made a very frustrated man very happy indeed. Your suggestion above works and while as you say launching plainclip adds another step. I'll take it. For now. I may experiment with other similar software such as formatmatch to see if there's something that does it automatically. But for now I'm a happy and far less frustrated bunny. Hope it solves your problem too Krag.

And thanks to all who attempted to help me solve this.

Noely

[ddavison]

krag, we will have to get back to you on that one. Since FG uses a specific xml format for most of its entries, we have to be very careful allowing *any* sort of input to be pasted in. In addition, while we may expand formatted text control fields to begin allowing for more html style tags, we often find that simple looking text from a web page can actually be quite bloated with links to external CSS documents, images, backgrounds, fonts, etc. Stripping things is definitely a better solution and then it becomes a matter of finding all the things we would need to strip out.

[AAWGAMES]

Has anyone found a fix for this yet? I am building modules on a Mac and need to be able to copy/paste.

[ianmward]

Hi AAWGAMES,
In post #18, Doug suggests a work around which works well in most situations. I have built a load of modules on my Mac, so it is possible. I hope it works for you.

[AAWGAMES]

I tried this but Plain Clip won't run on my MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1
It won't even open when double clicked. It just hangs and nothing happens...

Any other suggestions?

[noelyuk]

Just to clarify AAWGAMES. Plainclip is sort of a hidden interface so even double clicking on it's icon in the dock does nothing. However when I copy text from pdf I merely click the plain clip icon in the dock and then paste to where I want it and the pasted text appears. If I try the same without clicking plain clip the paste function is not recognised. Try this and see if it works for you. Failing that see if another programme formatmatch works for you. But for me it's Plainclip all the way.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/formatmatch/id445211988?mt=12

And just out of interest what ruleset are you trying to build mods for?

Best of luck

Noely

[ianmward]

AAWGAMES, as noel yuk says, when you run plain clip it just appears to do nothing and I am running it on Yosemite 10.10.1 without problems.
Also (I know you are probably doing this but still...) it's cmd-C in the PDF and ctrl-V in FG (It's running as a window app in Wine).
What sort of thing are you trying to paste?

[Trueshots]

Hey Doug. You're a legend.


Legend is an understatement at this point.....I've been trying for weeks......

[Trueshots]

I am again looking for help. Ive been trying for over a week to copy and paste from a PDF to a text dot (using word, text edit, etc) Ive tried multiple different pdf documents to see if thats the issue and its not Ive tried to use the Plain Clip app and its worthless. I have searched the internet for hours a day trying to fix this. I can't create a game without figuring this out. The chicken **** I get every time I paste no matter what, looks just like this picture. I actually found a way to remove every single space out, but that is just as big of a problem. I can't parse characters until i figure this out, please help.

EDIT: Im also speaking of getting the info from the PDF to something else. Not from a website to FG. I'm not having issues with that yet.....

[ddavison]

Unfortunately, plainclip won't do anything to fix that particular issue. It looks as if the source PDF you are using has had a very poor OCR done on it. Many PDFs are created directly in digital format, but some older items are actually scanned from printed copies and then an OCR step is run against them to identify each of the characters used. If the font is fancy or there is a mix of graphics and font overlaid, the OCR can result in being very poor like what you've seen above. Sometimes this can be corrected by re-running the PDF through another OCR process, but often times you won't be able to correct for that. What PDF is this from and where did you get it? It might be worth going through customer service and requesting to see if they have any better versions.

[Trenloe]

@Trueshots - are you using the original PDF for the Cyphermage Dilemma? i.e. have you purchased it from Paizo? You shouldn't have any problems copying the text from a Paizo PDF as it has the text available to copy.

[Trueshots]

Unfortunately, plainclip won't do anything to fix that particular issue. It looks as if the source PDF you are using has had a very poor OCR done on it. Many PDFs are created directly in digital format, but some older items are actually scanned from printed copies and then an OCR step is run against them to identify each of the characters used. If the font is fancy or there is a mix of graphics and font overlaid, the OCR can result in being very poor like what you've seen above. Sometimes this can be corrected by re-running the PDF through another OCR process, but often times you won't be able to correct for that. What PDF is this from and where did you get it? It might be worth going through customer service and requesting to see if they have any better versions. I'm using a Paizo PDF. Ive tried multiple Paizo pdf, so copy better than others but NONE do it perfectly correct and if I know piazza like iI think I do they could give two craps if my copy and paste is working...

[Trueshots]

@Trueshots - are you using the original PDF for the Cyphermage Dilemma? i.e. have you purchased it from Paizo? You shouldn't have any problems copying the text from a Paizo PDF as it has the text available to copy.


@Trenloe, yes and yes. But Ive tried multiple different pdfs, its the same issue everywhere. Before this Mac I never had an issue with copy paste feature... no clue whats going on just highly frustrated.

[Trenloe]

Are you copying from a native Mac app to a native Mac app. That is, your source PDF reader is a native Mac app and the text editor you're pasting to is a native Mac app - you're not using Wine or another windows emulator for this copy/paste process?

[Trenloe]

As an aside - you do know that the Cyphermage Dilemma is available as an FG module under the PFS FG module sharing agreement?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?20244-Private-sharing-of-PFS-scenario-data-available-modules&p=165701&viewfull=1#post165701

[ddavison]

Are you copying from a native Mac app to a native Mac app. That is, your source PDF reader is a native Mac app and the text editor you're pasting to is a native Mac app - you're not using Wine or another windows emulator for this copy/paste process?

He's trying to paste into Fantasy Grounds, which is a Wine app. It might be worth testing the copy and paste into a native Mac app first just to see if it does the same thing. I highly suspect that it will.

[Trenloe]

He's trying to paste into Fantasy Grounds, which is a Wine app. It might be worth testing the copy and paste into a native Mac app first just to see if it does the same thing. I highly suspect that it will.
I think the issue is not just limited to FG - Trueshots mentions "Ive been trying for over a week to copy and paste from a PDF to a text dot (using word, text edit, etc)".

[noelyuk]

Hi Trueshots.

If you want to send me a page of the pdf you're trying to copy and paste from I'll happily have a look. I've had similar problems in the past but to date there's only one pdf that point blank refused to copy so far and I had to use OCR software to rescan it whereupon it worked. I'm not saying I have the magic solution but having had the same problem before I can empathise and will be happy to have a go for you.

Noely
[email protected]

[Trueshots]

Hi Trueshots.

If you want to send me a page of the pdf you're trying to copy and paste from I'll happily have a look. I've had similar problems in the past but to date there's only one pdf that point blank refused to copy so far and I had to use OCR software to rescan it whereupon it worked. I'm not saying I have the magic solution but having had the same problem before I can empathise and will be happy to have a go for you.

Noely
[email protected]

Hey there, Its been working all night for me, not Im at a part where I need to copy paste massive amounts od text. It worked the first time and now I can't do anything thing. Ive copied from pdf to FG, word to fg, text wrangler to fg, text editor to FG, pdf to plain clip to fg, NOTHING works. Im about to go nuts here, have a game on sunday and my typing skill will never get that info put in there LOL

[damned]

So... are you running any AV products?
You are reporting different issues at different times.

Can you copy from the PDF into another Mac app?
Is it putting in lots of blanks?
Can you copy from Text Editor into FG?
Can you copy from FG into Text Editor?

[noelyuk]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Trueshots...or maybe it's good news I don't know. But the pdf copied for me first time with zero hassle whatsoever.

I'm pretty sure that you've misunderstood the way FG works when copying via mac osx. I attempted to copy paste the text manually from the pdf. If you try manually nothing will copy but copying via plain clip allowed me to copy any of the text I wanted to.

Just to clarify when copying manually you need to highlight copy (cmd +c) the text you want from the pdf then move to FG and select a new story entry or whatever and then paste into there. But this time to paste rather than (cmd + v) you need to use (ctrl+v) to paste because it's operating in wine.

Anyway to save time I then ran the entire pdf all 26 pages through an app I have called "PDF to TEXT" and it converted the entire document in seconds. I've emailed it you as a text file. I'll leave you to do the formatting ;)

Good luck with running the adventure. Hope you manage to get it working.

Noely

[ddavison]

I don't think this would have any impact, but if you are running FG through Steam, it is also recommended to turn off the Steam Overlay. You change that in the Library | Games | Fantasy Grounds (right-click and choose properties), and then uncheck the box for the Steam Overlay. Again, I don't think it would interfere... but just to be safe.

[Trueshots]

I'm pretty sure that you've misunderstood the way FG works when copying via mac osx. I attempted to copy paste the text manually from the pdf. If you try manually nothing will copy but copying via plain clip allowed me to copy any of the text I wanted to.
Maybe when I think i'm activating plain clip, its not actually activating? When you click (or double click) it doesn't do anything so its hard to tell if its actually started. I'll link a pic a bottom, tell me which options you choose on your Plain Clip. Pretty Pls



Just to clarify when copying manually you need to highlight copy (cmd +c) the text you want from the pdf then move to FG and select a new story entry or whatever and then paste into there. But this time to paste rather than (cmd + v) you need to use (ctrl+v) to paste because it's operating in wine.
Yes, I do it exactly like that. Remember I'm not using Steam, don't know if that matters


Anyway to save time I then ran the entire pdf all 26 pages through an app I have called "PDF to TEXT" and it converted the entire document in seconds. I've emailed it you as a text file. I'll leave you to do the formatting ;)
Thank you much I haven't even checked my email today. I'll look. I used Adobe Acrobat Pro (newest version) to do pdf to word and pdf to text. I still had issues. Since my game is in 24 hours I gotta get to it, I'll use the stuff you sent and worry bout this later.

Thanks for all the help thus far everyone!

[Trueshots]

I forgot to add the screen shot of plain clip. BUT,

Ive tried the methods you spoke of and nothing. I can copy and paste anywhere outside of FG, inside FG does not work. I used the text doc you sent, I made one just like it a day or so ago and I still can not copy from it and paste to FG or copy from it, use plain text, then paste to FG. Nothing is working.

[Trueshots]

My God I'm going to lose it. The other night when I was playing in a game I was trying to copy/paste from the d20pfsrd site to FG chat box. I randomly opened a d20 web page copied and pasted perfectly right into FG story area. I right click, chose copy then hit control +v to paste it in there and it worked perfect. So then I went back to the pdf and the text document and guess what....nothing...again.....

[Trueshots]

I don't think this would have any impact, but if you are running FG through Steam, it is also recommended to turn off the Steam Overlay. You change that in the Library | Games | Fantasy Grounds (right-click and choose properties), and then uncheck the box for the Steam Overlay. Again, I don't think it would interfere... but just to be safe.


I'm not running through steam, I'm actually gaining to delete steam off my computer to see if that changes anything.

[Trenloe]

Can you install a Windows PDF reader within Wine. The open the PDF with this Windows PDF within Wine and do copy/paste all within Wine. It may be that the issue is with the MAC to Wine clipboard interface. If you do all of the copy/paste process within Wine this will at least eliminate that from the equation and narrow down where the issue is if you still have problems.

[damned]

are you using any antivirus?

[Trueshots]

Can you install a Windows PDF reader within Wine. The open the PDF with this Windows PDF within Wine and do copy/paste all within Wine. It may be that the issue is with the MAC to Wine clipboard interface. If you do all of the copy/paste process within Wine this will at least eliminate that from the equation and narrow down where the issue is if you still have problems.

Ummm, I need to be upfront.....I'm clueless about how to use computers, your on another level right now :)


are you using any antivirus?
Not that I know of.....:)


Talked with my Buddy Paul, we think its a keyboard issue. Its says my keyboard is set up for US-English. But I also read that on some keyboard versions there is an additional key between the "z" and "shift". But I still don't know why that would affect me anyway....

Who is ready to remote in to my PC? :) LOL

[HoloGnome]

Trueshots - try a web-based PDF reader. Firefox should work for inline viewing.

Also - may help:
https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=8334

in X11.app preferences, make sure that you have pasteboard and clipboard syncing turned on.
Inside a windows app in Wine, use CTRL+C and CTRL+V .. and back on the Mac side switch back to use CMD+C and CMD+V

[darrenan]

removed

[Graylock]

Hey all. I have this same problem. I don't have the above mentioned PlainClip but I do all my writing in Google Docs and I can export my work as plain text and open in Preview (running on a mac). Even then I cannot paste into FG. Seems a little silly to be blocked from pasting since this is such a universal operation that is supported in even the most minor software. However it is a major problem for me since I'm never doing my game writing from with FG while at home. Others have said it was the antivirus/firewall software causing the problem but I'm not running any antivirus and have given permission to FG and Steam to my firewall. I was able to paste text one time but never again. I've used different keyboards and different sources with no success. Very frustrating. Any further suggestions?

Thanks

Mac. Steam. Ultimate License

[Graylock]

And i"m wondering if the fact that FG doesn't include a Paste option in the Edit menu is part of the problem. When I use Ctrl+V I do not see the Edit menu turn blue as I do when I Copy.

[damned]

Hi Graylock - there is an issue that can occur on the mac. You should try PlainClip. https://www.bluem.net/en/mac/plain-clip/
Many people do use Macs - one of the Devs uses a Mac almost exclusively and one of my GMs uses a Mac and he does a lot of module building which involves cut n paste on his computer.

[Trueshots]

I'll tell you this, I never got it to work, I just gave up. The game is really not made for Mac and is quit apparent. I had to copy text from pdf on wife's pc then email to myself the put into parser, etc.....massive pain in the butt....

[AAWGAMES]

I'll tell you this, I never got it to work, I just gave up. The game is really not made for Mac and is quit apparent. I had to copy text from pdf on wife's pc then email to myself the put into parser, etc.....massive pain in the butt....

Sadly my solution to this was to buy a cheap laptop specifically for working with FG. A major expense for a very minor problem. Was NOT happy about this but there was no way around it and I wanted to produce material for the FG store by converting our existing catalog over. Sometimes I also have to make modifications to builds done by freelancers.

So yeah, that doesn't help anyone here but I would urge John and Doug to work on an actual app for Mac as a LOT of people prefer this. Personally I used a PC since I was 8 years old until I was 34. Once you go Mac you never go back! The best thing about Mac is I don't have to use the latest annoyance of the Windows OS which is god awful! ;)

[noelyuk]

Sadly my solution to this was to buy a cheap laptop specifically for working with FG. A major expense for a very minor problem. Was NOT happy about this but there was no way around it and I wanted to produce material for the FG store by converting our existing catalog over. Sometimes I also have to make modifications to builds done by freelancers.

So yeah, that doesn't help anyone here but I would urge John and Doug to work on an actual app for Mac as a LOT of people prefer this. Personally I used a PC since I was 8 years old until I was 34. Once you go Mac you never go back! The best thing about Mac is I don't have to use the latest annoyance of the Windows OS which is god awful! ;)

Yup! Plain Clip all the way. No messing around on wife's computer (urghhh!) or emailing to yourself, or buying another laptop. Plain Clip my friends. i've used it to build numerous modules and it's FREE! What's not to love?

[Trueshots]

Sadly my solution to this was to buy a cheap laptop specifically for working with FG. A major expense for a very minor problem. Was NOT happy about this but there was no way around it and I wanted to produce material for the FG store by converting our existing catalog over. Sometimes I also have to make modifications to builds done by freelancers.

So yeah, that doesn't help anyone here but I would urge John and Doug to work on an actual app for Mac as a LOT of people prefer this. Personally I used a PC since I was 8 years old until I was 34. Once you go Mac you never go back! The best thing about Mac is I don't have to use the latest annoyance of the Windows OS which is god awful! ;)

Yea I'm going to agree 100%, pc can't touch a mac unless your doing high intensity gaming, the you'll see your basic mac stuggle. But even that is because most of the MMO are built for pc. But for every other task mac is tremendously better. If mine died today I'd buy a new one tomorrow no questions asked!

[AAWGAMES]

Yup! Plain Clip all the way. No messing around on wife's computer (urghhh!) or emailing to yourself, or buying another laptop. Plain Clip my friends. i've used it to build numerous modules and it's FREE! What's not to love?


Plain clip never worked for me.

[Trueshots]

Plain clip never worked for me.

Yea plain clip, text wrangler, and about 3-4 others, even paid ones...none worked for me.

[noelyuk]

Yea plain clip, text wrangler, and about 3-4 others, even paid ones...none worked for me.

Plain Clip definitely works with ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING i've ever tried to par5e (apart from a couple of Fantasy Flight modules which appear to have been specially coded in some sections to prevent parsing/copying). The thing with it though is it's such an unassuming program that doesn't make a sound or offer any indication that it's done what you want it to do until 'voila' it pastes what you like. I'd be happy to try it for you if you send me a sample of a document that you're having difficulty with copy pasting.

[ddavison]

I have a Mac but I'm probably the farthest thing from a Mac guy. Plainclip worked immediately for me from every source I tested, which is why I posted it.

The Unity version of Fantasy Grounds will support native Mac and Linux applications. In the meantime, I would encourage people to go back to the post about Plainclip and follow those instructions exactly. It's a lot cheaper than buying a new laptop.

[AAWGAMES]

I have a Mac but I'm probably the farthest thing from a Mac guy. Plainclip worked immediately for me from every source I tested, which is why I posted it.

The Unity version of Fantasy Grounds will support native Mac and Linux applications. In the meantime, I would encourage people to go back to the post about Plainclip and follow those instructions exactly. It's a lot cheaper than buying a new laptop.


I'm running OSX Yosemite on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro. Trust me, it doesn't work on this computer. I spent hours messing with it previously, gave up, and bought the PC laptop instead.

[ddavison]

Please check your Plainclip preferences. If you hold Shift + double-click on Plain clip, it will open your preferences. Tell it what you want to strip out. It should look like this.

10382

I just tested that by opening the D&D basic rules PDF from Wizards of the Coast, and selecting some text to paste into a story for FG.

After setting the plainclip preferences, I dragged it to my launch bar on the Mac.

1. Highlight text from PDF (viewing directly through Safari)
2. press Command+C to copy it to the clipboard
3. Click on Plainclip icon from launch bar
4. put your cursor where you want to paste inside of FG and press CTRL+V

If you skip step 3, it won't appear to do anything. Then just do step 3 & 4 (again) and it will paste it in. You can play with different plainclip settings to get the right setup that you want.

[Graylock]

Okay, I have a little hope I might be able to get this to work, but it seems silly. I'm no coder but isn't this a simple thing to bug fix? Anyway, I'll give it a try. I won't be getting a PC just to run this software though. I dumped PCs years ago and never looked back. The only thing I ever needed them for was various gaming software. But after dropping $170 into FG license and modules I'm a little annoyed that this minor bug keeps me from using the software effectively. This is a big problem for me. Thanks for the help and I'll give you all an update when I test things out.

cheers

[ddavison]

I just updated my Mid-2010 iMac from Snow Leopard (10.6.8) to Yosemite (10.10.3) and successfully re-tested plainclip and Fantasy Grounds. I have plainclip set with everything checked at the moment, but it might be worth leaving some of them on.

When you test, pay attention to which parts you are highlighting before you paste over. For instance, even without plainclip, I was able to paste some smaller sections of a PDF over to FG. Only when I started including section headings and other specially formatted text did I run into the problem where it didn't paste and I had to resort to clicking on Plainclip in between the CMD+C and CTRL+V operations.

[Graylock]

Well I'm in the same boat as AAWGames. Nothing works. Followed the instructions on Plainclip with no results. I've tried it on 2 different macs using both Mavericks and Yosemite. Tried it it from different PDF sources using different browsers and viewers. Nothing. Without this simple paste ability the FG software is crippled for me. I've already spent hours on this and am very disappointed. I have 5 guys waiting to get on board with FG but I'll have to tell them its a no-go. How the heck could something this basic be so hard to correct? :mad:

[ddavison]

Can you post a pic of your Plainclip settings? Also, try using a public PDF like the D&D 5E player's guide so we can verify that we are all testing the same thing.

[Graylock]

Okay, here's more observations. Plainclip works perfectly in any other application I try it in, stripping out what I desire. I've tried to paste into FG from the 5E players guide without success. However, I noticed that there is no "paste" option in FG Edit menu, only copy. In fact, I cannot even copy text from within FG and Paste it back into FG. I can copy from FG and Paste that text into any other application I try but FG seems to not even have a Paste option available. I included a pic of the FG menu bar to show this.


10385

10386

[Trenloe]

In fact, I cannot even copy text from within FG and Paste it back into FG.
I have to ask this - just in case this is being overlooked.

When you copy text in Fantasy Grounds you need to use the CTRL+C keys and when you paste within Fantasy Grounds you use the CTRL+V keys. Does using the CTRL+C and CTRL_V keys (not the CMD key) purely in Fantasy Grounds work for you?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/The_Basics#Text_Fields

EDIT: The CTRL key could be labeled Control or ^. Also, check that your keyboard "Modifier Keys" setup hasn't re-mapped the control key to something other than control: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/52041/how-to-press-control-key-on-mac

[ddavison]

Can you try it again with all the checkboxes enabled for Plainclip? I suspect the most important ones are actually the last two: Remove Invisible Control Characters and Convert to ASCII.

The Edit menu option you see is consistent with what I see on my dev Mac. We might be able to research this to see if it is indicative a problem with the WineSkin configuration.

Also on the paste operation, I just wanted to confirm that you are using Ctrl+V instead of CMD+V to paste into FG.

[Graylock]

I'll be a son-of-a-birch, that was it! The cmd+c copies (as is normal in Mac) but ctrl+v pastes (which is normally cmd+v on Mac, not ctrl). Before ctrl+v did nothing in FG but after checking off all the options in plainclip it pasted into FG. Wow, that was a really aggravating past few days. Thanks very much for all your efforts. My hope and faith has been restored!

And Trenloe, in FG it is different. I have to use ctrl+c to copy, not cmd+c. But I can ctrl+v to paste from and to FG okay.

Thanks again. Big sigh of relief!

[ddavison]

Thanks for sticking with it Graylock. It is something that should go away entirely with the full rebuild we are working on, but that is still a ways off due to the sheer amount of work involved.

[noelyuk]

Yep! As the OP of this thread I feel your pain Graylock, since I was in the same boat. But with the great help I got from Doug Davison, Trenloe and others I was able to rectify it. I'd urge anyone else having the same issues not to dismiss it as an insurmountable problem for mac users. But simply a quirk that can be fixed if you follow the above instructions to the letter. Thanks again guys!

[Trenloe]

And Trenloe, in FG it is different. I have to use ctrl+c to copy, not cmd+c. But I can ctrl+v to paste from and to FG okay.
Yep, that's exactly what I was referring to when I said: "When you copy text in Fantasy Grounds you need to use the CTRL+C keys and when you paste within Fantasy Grounds you use the CTRL+V keys."

Glad you got it working. :)

[Chadarius]

I just found this thread. I found something interesting that may help out. I found that PDF's that may use different single and double quotes will keep text from pasting even if you do use Plain Clip. As these are valid text only characters they don't get filtered out or changed. Fantasy Grounds will not accept the following characters

“ ” ’

You need to replace with with regular quotes double and single quotes

" " '

Once I did that everything worked perfect.

[damned]

Welcoem Chadarius - there are so many frustrating peculiarities with copying data from PDF. Lucky we are all such patient people.... :)

[dudeslife]

None of these tips helped in copying from PDF to FG on a Mac (elcap) running under Wine. Did anyone find a new solution?

EDIT: ok after further tweaking I got PlainClip working, but I am still curious if this is the only way. Thanks again for all the help you guys deliver!

[damned]

Once Unity (here goes another of those...!) arrives and there is a Native Mac and Linux app then this issue will not be there... but due to differences in character sets or something like that plainclip is the most reliable method.

[dudeslife]

Once Unity (here goes another of those...!) arrives and there is a Native Mac and Linux app then this issue will not be there... but due to differences in character sets or something like that plainclip is the most reliable method.

ok thanks. I am making the click of plainclip automatic muscle memory now.. :)

[Varsuuk]

Thanks, I had this trouble as well since up until now I used my Mac with FG only to write my own work or convert by Par5e.

I followed Doug's concise step by steppy thing and all went well. I'm a Windows guy who other than phones and iPads had no Mac knowledge when got the MBP15 in '12. I can tell you I love my MacBook (gotten since one for wife) but not having the CONTROL key avail on the right side drives me nuts! because I often use mouse or separate trackpad with my left hand (lefty) but hey, I am used to Apple not being amenable to my prefs, just look at how I still have to use the external WIRED keyboard on desk cos its the only one with the damn page up/down etc keys which they don't put on the bluetooth... but I digress - THANKS for the info, works better than pasting on my PC desktop now cos preprocessing is done before I paste even ;)