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Question

Does some piece of software exist,

  1. Where when I copy and paste information from a website, it will auto-format the copy/citation into markdown
  2. Sum all the common base url's together so that the entire page is not blue. (this is not necessary, would be great)

Desired Output

Let's say I copy information from Software Recommendations tour page

Software Recommendations Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people seeking specific software recommendations

In order for me to do that, I had to hit Ctrl-L and then a copy paste of the words "Software Recommendations Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people seeking specific software recommendations", where as in the bookmark application Pinboard, if I select/highlight the information, it brings all the text highlighted, into the bookmark automatically.

Examples of Pinboard

1 No Text Highlighted Pinboard

2

Highlighted_text_Pinboard

Seen in the wild

I know this happens when you try and copy a motivational quote from this website Brainy Quote

Brainy Quote Output after Paste

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/carolburne371189.html?src=t_motivational

After seeing this, I searched stackexchange and found this How to add extra info to copied web text

  • this proved it's possible.

I also found this, but it did not happen to solve the person's question. Markdown editor to preserve URL links in text copied from browser

He asked this "Markdown editor to preserve URL links in text copied from browser"

Markdown editor to preserve URL links in text copied from browser question

It is hilarious because in order to properly cite him, I had to take a picture because I could not copy and paste it properly without a lot of pain to show you what his question was in order to save you the pain of clicking through the link

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  • If I'm getting your idea, then I think there is a plug-in you can install in a wordpress.org installation, where when you paste a url into a webpage, the url is automatically converted into a link. But maybe that only responds to one part of what you're looking for....
    – aparente001
    May 13, 2017 at 5:26
  • @aparente001 sorry not it. I appreciate the response though!
    – Ted Taylor of Life
    May 14, 2017 at 1:32
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    I just did a test. You can drag from the left edge of the url box in the browser into MS Word and the result will be a hyperlink. (Not sure if that helps with what you want to do.) I tried it in Notepad++, no joy. // Maybe you should start a bounty.
    – aparente001
    May 14, 2017 at 6:44
  • @TedTaylorofLife: could you mention what OS and/or browser you'd want this to work on?
    – Christopher Su
    May 25, 2017 at 8:45
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    When you want to cite some formatted text from a StackExchange post, like in your last example, you can click "edit" ("improve this question" if you're not logged in) to copy it in the markdown form, then paste it, select it and click the Blockquote button or Ctrl+Q.
    – user
    May 29, 2017 at 11:33

1 Answer 1

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+50

What you are looking for is an HTML to markdown converter integrated with the clipboard handling on the browser or the system level. You can find some attempts to implement it by searching the Internet for "copy html as markdown" and "html to markdown clipboard". Bear in mind however that everything you find will be some sort of compromise since there is no standard Markdown and the HTML (what you see in the browser) is much more powerful than what a Markdown engine can generate. That said, it is possible to convert simple things such as links and lists, just don't expect them to look exactly like the source.

But if you want to quote something from a StackExchange network website, an easier solution would be to click "edit" ("improve this question") and copy the needed part in the source (Markdown) form. After pasting, select the quote and click the Blockquote button (Ctrl+Q).

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1
  • I appreciate your response. It was the closest to what I was looking for. Thank you again.
    – Ted Taylor of Life
    May 30, 2017 at 12:08

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