>>> What is the added value of marking >>> it as HTML on the clipboard? >>> >> The added value is that you are able to paste the text into a word >> processing program like AbiWord, MS Word or StarWriter in a way that >> the HTML-Tags are not shown, but are interpreted by the word >> processing program in order to format the text as it would be >> formatted in a HTML browser. >> >> To achieve this know, I only see one way: Convert your text to HTML, >> then save it as HTML, open it with a web browser, copy it from here >> into the clipboard and paste it into a word processing program. > > Why don't these programs offer the option "paste as HTML"? I mean, the > user must have a choice if he wants the HTML as text or the resulting > markup. > The windows clipboard can contain one and the same data item several time, each time in a different format. If I for instance copy from an HTML browser, the data is contained there in HTML as well as in plain text format.
I assume word processing programs offer only the format option they can find within the clipboard and they can handle with. When Vim copies text into the clipboard, it declares this text as plain text, never as HTML. This is why word processing programs interpret this text as plain text and don't offer the same options as for HTML -- even if the text _is_ HTML. IMHO this is ok: In order to tell to a target application what it can do with the data contained in the clipboard, declare its format and don't assume that the user can do this. Of course I have no doubt that there are only intelligent Vim users. But the world of word processing program is another one ;-) With best regards Mathias Michaelis
