Cannot paste image from clipboard into any LibreOffice document

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#1

Does anyone know why an image placed on the clipboard by ABBYY Screenshot Reader (part of the ABBYY FineReader 11 family) will not paste into a LO document (i.e. Writer, Calc, Impress or Draw)? The only LO app that gives an error message is Calc, which just says “the contents of the clipboard could not be pasted”. Not a lot of use as it doesn’t say why. The other LO apps don’t even give an error message - they just won’t paste it.
To explain…Screenshot Reader lets you select a rectangular portion (of your chosen dimensions) of the current screen, and then gives you various options to save it (e.g. as a file, to the clipboard, etc). If I choose to save it to the clipboard, then I can paste it into numerous other applications (such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc) and that all works exactly as you would expect - i.e. if it’s on the clipboard, “Paste” will paste it into the chosen document, without having to configure any special settings etc. It just does it.
However, it doesn’t work with LO, and I’m at a loss to understand why.
Does anyone have any ideas on this one please?

Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1; LibreOffice version 6.2.4.2 (x64); Build ID: 2412653d852ce75f65fbfa83fb7e7b669a126d64; CPU threads: 8; UI render: default; VCL: win; Locale: en-GB (en_GB); UI-Language: en-GB Calc: threaded
#2

What format have you selected for the image?

#3

I haven’t deliberately selected any particular format for the image and I don’t know (or care, really) what format Screenshot Reader saves it to the clipboard in. All I know is that when you save anything to the clipboard, you can then paste it into wherever you want to paste it. Except, for some reason, for LO apps! To be honest, the user should not be expected to know what format images are copied to the clipboard in - they should (and do, generally) just magically appear when you paste them. To most users, the clipboard is an amazing concept that people don’t understand, but just works. Btw, if I insert an image such as a jpeg file myself into say, LO Writer, then that works fine - it’s just images put on the clipboard by ABBYY Screenshot Reader that LO won’t paste.

#4

If that is the case, you would wonder why ABBY gives you the choice of formats in which it will store images. It might just be possible that the format you are using is one which LO doesn’t support. I don’t think, from your response, that I can give you any further advice that you will consider useful.

#5

Thanks for your reply, robleyd. Apologies if you took my previous comment to be a bit offhand - it certainly wasn’t meant to be. Just to clarify - ABBYY Screenshot Reader offers the following options for saving the selected area:- text to clipboard, text to Microsoft Word, text to file, table to clipboard, table to Microsoft Word, table to file, image to clipboard, image to ABBYY FineReader, image to file, image to email. Of all the options for saving to the clipboard, LO will paste both text and tables, but will not paste images. I simply don’t know in what format ABBYY saves images to the clipboard, as I have always found the principle of “copy and paste” to work without that knowledge, regardless of the application I’m using. Kind regards,

#6

I understand from the ABBY documentation that it saves, I quote “ABBYY Screenshot Reader lets you save image screenshots in JPEG, Bitmap or PNG formats. Text screenshots can be saved as editable texts in .RTF, .TXT, .DOC or .XLS formats.”.

I advise you to save images in JPEG. Save text as TXT. Are you using the PASTE SPECIAL option? You can then use the PASTE UNFORMATTED TEXT option for the text.

#7

Hello petermau. Thank you for your comment. I think you are referring to saving captured images or text as files (which works fine if I want to store them as individual files). However, my question specifically refers to saving an image to the clipboard (using ABBYY’s “save image to clipboard” option) and then opening LibreOffice and trying to paste it into either Writer, Calc, Impress or Draw.
It’s true that I could save the screenshot as a file and then Insert that file into the appropriate LO document but that’s not the point - which is that LO will not paste a clipboard item generated by ABBYY Screenshot Reader. I’ve tried paste special for pasting the image that ABBYY Screenshot Reader has put on the clipboard, but LO only gives one paste special option and that doesn’t work either.

#8

Try to capture the clipboard content using some tool (like InsideClipboard). Then close Screenshot Reader; copy something to clipboard (to clear its content); and then try to re-load the captured clipboard from the InsideClipboard tool. Check if it’s still possible to paste to various applications, but not to LibreOffice. If it’s so, then please file a bug report, attaching the captured clipboard content, which would allow others (who don’t have the ABBYY product) to reproduce - and possibly fix - the issue.

By the way, when you mention that some clipboard-management software works with “numerous other applications (such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc)” (sic!), you only see which applications ABBYY developers cared about :wink:

#9

Although I have not used ABBYY, my experience with a number of other clipboard managers is that none of them always worked as expected. From this I have learned that, except for simple copy/paste of text, saving images to a named file in a folder of choice and then inserting using LibreOffice menu Insert → Image is both reliable and expedient. Similarly, it works with Corel WordPerfect and numerous other smaller programs. By this method, you always know what you are going to get.

#10

Thanks Mike Kaganski and ve3oat.
I did what you suggested, Mike, and checked the contents of the clipboard after ABBYY Screenshot Reader saved my image to the clipboard (I downloaded “Free Clipboard Viewer 3.0” to check this, and that clearly showed the image saved to the clipboard was a bitmap and displayed the image itself). Interestingly, if I just saved the whole screen to the clipboard (by pressing the Print/SysRq key on my keyboard), LO Writer actually pasted that correctly. I could then crop the image in LO Writer to achieve the same effect as ABBYY. This might be another option in future - as well as saving to a file and then inserting the file into LO Writer, as suggested by ve3oat.
Bearing in mind ve3oat’s comments, I don’t think I’ll report it as a bug, as there are relatively simple ways round the issue and I’m sure the LO developers have enough non-trivial bugs to deal with.
Thanks again to everyone who responded to this post.

#11

It is not the screenshot application at fault, but LO itself. It will not paste images saved in the clipboard. I tried that with Snip & Sketch in Windows with the same result, no pasted image in LO writer.

Pasting clipboard images to Microsoft Office 2010 works fine.

#12

@aer4a: and? Citing @Geoff_B:

I don’t think I’ll report it as a bug

Citing you:

It is not the screenshot application at fault, but LO itself

So what now? Have you done anything to inform developers and allow them to try to find the reason and fix?

#13

I don’t use ABBEY, I do have Win11 I was simply just using the right click option “copy image” on webpage image then opening Writer and selecting “paste” but then I just got a window that said “Insert” and had various options one with PW protect IDK why. But I just said OK and got nothing but a little narrow box with nothing in it. Anyway I tried “Paste Special” and selected “Bitmap” and boom there was the image!

#14

You should have asked your own question instead of hijacking an ancient thread.

See Can webp images be inserted into odt documents? If so, how?

#15

I didn’t hi-jack a GD thing especially if it so ancient! I simply responded his advice worked for me. And this is where Google sent me.

#16

The question was not related to WEBP images.

#17

Learn the difference between a statement and a question for starters.

#18

I was trying to help with the link I posted above but you didn’t follow; it addresses webpage images.
If you paste as Bitmap directly into Writer, it will be saved as .png within the file increasing the original file size of the image maybe 20 times and increasing the file size of your Writer document unnecessarily.
You are better off pasting the .webp into a graphics editor, saving it as jpg and then Insert > Image and navigate to your saved image (or drag from your file manager into Writer).

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