Copy from viewer to web form results in invisible characters being added

mfaine1 · 01-02-2024, 06:38 PM

I'm reading a book in Spanish and trying to copy the words I don't know into a web form and additional characters are being added, for example:

or*gu*llo*sos

When pasted into a search form at SpanishDict.com becomes:

or%C2%ADgu%C2%ADllo%C2%ADsos

Is this an option or something that I can turn off to prevent this?

Thanks
Mark

kovidgoyal · 01-02-2024, 09:58 PM

Those are non-breaking spaces. If they are present in the text they will be present when copied as well. The viewer has no way to know whether the non-breaking spaces are safe to replace with ordinary spaces or not.

mfaine1 · 01-03-2024, 08:52 PM

I can't imagine a scenario in which copy and pasting non-breaking spaces as normal spaces would matter though I could be wrong. Still, would it be possible to replace invisible characters (such as this) with a regular space either globally or at the book level? It kind of breaks the copy/paste functionality otherwise. I think in 100% of the cases the user is not going to intend to copy non-breaking spaces to the clipboard.

kovidgoyal · 01-03-2024, 09:08 PM

I would definitely expect non-breaking spaces to be preserved when copying text. non-breaking spaces often have semantic meaning. And if you want to replace then use search and replace either via the edit book tool or by doing a conversion from whatever format the book is in to the same format.

DNSB · 01-03-2024, 10:21 PM

Perhaps a minor nit but if I recall correctly, %C2%A0 would be a non-breaking space. %C2%AD would be a soft hyphen.

kovidgoyal · 01-04-2024, 01:40 AM

Ah in that case you can use the Polish books tool in calibre to remove them automatically.

01-02-2024, 06:38 PM	#1
mfaine1 Member Posts: 16 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2020 Device: Kindle	Copy from viewer to web form results in invisible characters being added I'm reading a book in Spanish and trying to copy the words I don't know into a web form and additional characters are being added, for example: orgullo*sos When pasted into a search form at SpanishDict.com becomes: or%C2%ADgu%C2%ADllo%C2%ADsos Is this an option or something that I can turn off to prevent this? Thanks Mark

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01-02-2024, 09:58 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,034 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Those are non-breaking spaces. If they are present in the text they will be present when copied as well. The viewer has no way to know whether the non-breaking spaces are safe to replace with ordinary spaces or not.

01-03-2024, 08:52 PM	#3
mfaine1 Member Posts: 16 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2020 Device: Kindle	I can't imagine a scenario in which copy and pasting non-breaking spaces as normal spaces would matter though I could be wrong. Still, would it be possible to replace invisible characters (such as this) with a regular space either globally or at the book level? It kind of breaks the copy/paste functionality otherwise. I think in 100% of the cases the user is not going to intend to copy non-breaking spaces to the clipboard.

01-03-2024, 09:08 PM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,034 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	I would definitely expect non-breaking spaces to be preserved when copying text. non-breaking spaces often have semantic meaning. And if you want to replace then use search and replace either via the edit book tool or by doing a conversion from whatever format the book is in to the same format.

01-03-2024, 10:21 PM	#5
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 36,990 Karma: 148318166 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Perhaps a minor nit but if I recall correctly, %C2%A0 would be a non-breaking space. %C2%AD would be a soft hyphen.

01-04-2024, 01:40 AM	#6
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,034 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Ah in that case you can use the Polish books tool in calibre to remove them automatically.