USE CASE
Fix the line breaks in text copied from a web page
Copy from a web page and the lines break mid-sentence, with stray spaces left at the ends. This is how the Chrome extension Copy & Prep rejoins that wrapping before you write the text out.
What it can tidy is text you selected on a page and added to Copy & Prep. There is no feature for taking in what is already on your clipboard, or for loading a text file.
Where the work gets awkward
A web page shows its text wrapped to a comfortable width, and the selection follows what is displayed. Paste it somewhere else and the line breaks come along mid-sentence, sometimes with trailing spaces attached.
Where you pasted it, the width is different, so those break positions mean nothing. They stay in the text as characters all the same, and the paragraph reads badly.
What you end up repeating
Usually it comes down to one of two things:
- Put the cursor at the end of a line, press Delete, and repeat once per paragraph
- Replace the line breaks in bulk — and lose the paragraph boundaries along with them
What makes bulk replacement awkward is that it cannot tell a break you want to keep from one you want gone. In bullet lists, numbered lists, table rows and code, the line break is the structure. Remove them all and the shape collapses, which costs more to repair than it saved.
The same job with Copy & Prep
- 1
Select text on a page and choose "Add to Copy & Prep" from the right-click menu.
- 2
Open the settings tab and press "Tidy up". The before and the after appear side by side.
- 3
Check the result, then apply it. Nothing changes if you do not, and even after applying, one step takes the passage back to what you originally selected.
- 4
Press "Copy all" to write it out. Choose plain text or Markdown.
Only the wrapping inside a paragraph is rejoined, and trailing whitespace is removed. The bullet rows keep their line breaks, because there the break is the structure.
What this looks like in practice
Pasting a quote into an email or a report
No rebuilding the paragraph after you paste. Whether to tidy is decided per item.
Carrying an explanation that contains lists or tables
The structured parts survive and only the prose wrapping is repaired. Write it out as Markdown and it drops straight in.
Fixing several pages worth in one pass
What you collected stays in the list. Tidy it once you have finished reading and write it all out together.
What Copy & Prep does
- Rejoins only the wrapping inside a paragraph
- Removes the trailing whitespace left at the ends of lines
- Keeps the structure of bullet lists, numbered lists, tables and code
- Shows the before and the after side by side before anything is applied
- Takes a tidied passage back to the originally captured text in one step
- Lets you collect several pages worth first, then copy it all at once
- Stores everything in chrome.storage.local and makes no network requests
What Copy & Prep does not do
- Take in text from the clipboard or from a file. It works on passages you selected on a page and added
- Substitute characters. Non-breaking and ideographic spaces are left exactly as captured
- Summarize, rephrase or proofread. Tidying touches whitespace and line breaks only
- Re-wrap the body in Markdown syntax. Changing the output format leaves the text itself alone
- Reformat without asking. Nothing changes until you press apply
The tool for this job
Features, permissions and privacy are set out in full on the product page.
Copy & Prep A Chrome extension that collects text from several pages, tidies it up, and copies it all at once See what it does →