Dear Ancestry Insider
I copy and paste Family History Library catalog entries into a bibliography and into search lists for counties where my ancestors lived. In the old catalog, I could view the printable version, select and copy the films, and paste them into my application. Multiple reels would each display on a separate line.
In the new catalog, which doesn’t have a printable version, when I paste multiple films, all are displayed in a single paragraph with no hard returns. For entries with multiple reels, splitting the reels onto separate lines can be quite time consuming.
Signed,
Lemon Egg
A Lesson on Copy and Paste
Dear Lemon,
How the film list looks when pasted into another application depends on both the browser and the application. For example, when films from “Marriage records of Utah County, 1887-1966” are copied from Microsoft Internet Explorer and pasted into Microsoft Word, Word puts them in a table like this:
| Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482939 | |
| Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482940 | |
| Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482941 | |
| Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482942 | |
| Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482943 |
Firefox is extremely picky about what text you select. If you select only lines with films, when you paste into Word you lose the line breaks:
Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 FHL US/CAN Film 482939 Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 FHL US/CAN Film 482940 Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 FHL US/CAN Film 482941 Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 FHL US/CAN Film 482942 Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 FHL US/CAN Film 482943
To avoid this when copying from tables in Firefox, you must include the beginning of the table. Then when you paste into Word you get:
| Note | Location | Film | |
| Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482939 | |
| Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482940 | |
| Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482941 | |
| Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482942 | |
| Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 | FHL US/CAN Film | 482943 |
Some pasting problems can be resolved by first pasting into Windows Notepad. Then copy from Notepad and paste into your app. This breaks the films onto separate lines like this:
Marriage applications, 1-966, Jan 1897-Sept 1899 FHL US/CAN Film 482939
Marriage applications, 967-1194 Sept 1899-June 1901 FHL US/CAN Film 482940
Marriage applications, 1192-2187 June 1901-Dec 1903 FHL US/CAN Film 482941
Marriage applications, 2186-2576 Jan 1904-Sept 1905 FHL US/CAN Film 482942
Marriage applications, 2577-2845, 1-261 Sept 1905-June 1907 FHL US/CAN Film 482943
Hope this helps,
-- The Insider
Thanks for the explanation. It's interesting it's a browser issue (I do use Firefox.) I tried pasting into Wordpad, then repasting into Word, and that worked. Still, I think for as long as I can, I will continue using the old catalog.
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