Firefox only copies inline style rules and not CSS rules added via a style sheet to the clipboard and you would have to paste this in an HTML capable editor (text/html).

You can check this via "View Selection Source" in the right-click context menu.

cor-el said

Firefox only copies inline style rules and not CSS rules added via a style sheet to the clipboard

That makes sense. Thank you. Are there any addons that can change this behavior? If not, I guess I'll have to stick to chrome at work.

that helpful answer was incomprehensible to me - I'm not a techie - I have no idea what "inline style rules and not CSS rules" are or a "style sheet" or "HTML capable editor (text/html)" or a "Selection Source" or the "right-click context menu."

All I want to do - and I do it a lot - is copy an article, like from the NY Times, and paste it into an email for a relative or friend to read. Firefox obliterates all formatting, inserting huge white spaces and blowing up small right margin links into enormous insertions right in the middle of the text.

A couple of years ago I got real tired of having to delete all the crap FF inserts into the articles and try to make them readable, and I quit using Firefox mainly for that reason and switched to Chrome.

I am just now giving FF a try again (for like the 3rd-4th-5th time), and I can see its speed has increased a lot and the websites look good. But c&p is what a LOT of people do, and FF is a huge fail. If Chrome can do it, why can't Firefox?

I can tell I'll be giving up on Firefox again before long and returning to Chrome, though I hate Google - I figure if I use enough ad blockers and DuckDuckGo, and regularly clean out my cookies, I'll have virtually the same security Firefox provides with none of the hassle. Come Mozilla, please! Make Firefox retain formatting!

Hi kapakahi

You can use the builtin Firefox screenshot feature and take a screenshot of the text and send this screenshot instead. That way images ans special icons are included as well.

You can find items like "Take a Screenshot" and the Bookmark Star in the drop-down list that opens if you click the "Page actions" button (3-dot icon at the right end of the location/address bar). You can right-click an item in the "Page actions" drop-down list to add its button to the location/address bar for easy access.

thanks - never knew about that - it looks OK, like the original, and at least you can shoot an entire page, not just what you can see, but unfortunately it's a photo, so of course the links embedded in the articles don't work and you can't do a lookup - plus if you send it actual size it can be huge (I just ss'd one profile article in the Times and it's 4.7mb if I send it actual size, which is important if you want the text to be clear - while if I sent it c&p it's only 102kb) - I'm sure Firefox can do better since the other major browsers can do accurate c&p, I'm just puzzled why, after years of people justifiably complaining about this singular deficit, Firefox hasn't fixed itself.

You can search the Addo-ons website for an extension with such a feature.

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/copy-selection-as-markdown/
• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/single-file/

• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=copy%20markdown&type=extension

thanks again - I'll give these a look - generally if I see an add-on has very few users I'll avoid it, but nothing ventured nothing gained!

You're welcome

I've edited my above reply to add a search query for "copy markdown".

• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=copy%20markdown&type=extension