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Fix: Verse Block Preserves Text Formatting (italic, bold, etc.) on Paste#69544

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Fix: Verse Block Preserves Text Formatting (italic, bold, etc.) on Paste#69544
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dhruvikpatel18:fix/57624-verse-block-preserve-text-formatting

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@dhruvikpatel18 dhruvikpatel18 commented Mar 12, 2025

Closes #57624

What?

This PR fixes an issue where text formatting (italic, bold, etc.) is stripped when pasting content into the Verse block.

Why?

When pasting formatted verse (poetry) into the Verse block, whitespace is preserved but all text formatting is stripped out. This creates unnecessary work for content editors who then need to manually re-add all formatting.

The Paragraph block correctly retains text formatting on paste, and the Verse block should behave similarly since verse content (poetry, lyrics, etc.) often uses italics, bolds, and similar formatting.

Testing Instructions

  1. Create a post and insert an empty Verse block
  2. Find a poem that includes italics, for example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/161828/luh-friends
  3. Copy the poem's text and paste it into the empty Verse block
  4. Verify that the italics are preserved (before this fix, they would be removed)

Testing Instructions for Keyboard

Screenshots or screencast

Before

before_verse.mov

After

after_verse.mov

@dhruvikpatel18 dhruvikpatel18 marked this pull request as ready for review March 12, 2025 12:18
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@Mamaduka Mamaduka added [Type] Bug An existing feature does not function as intended [Feature] Paste [Block] Verse Affects the Verse block labels Mar 12, 2025
hbhalodia
hbhalodia approved these changes Mar 12, 2025
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LGTM!

Mamaduka
Mamaduka reviewed Mar 12, 2025
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This was intentionally added to fix another issue in #27781 / #27660. Let's ensure we're not introducing a regression.

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Mamaduka commented Mar 21, 2025

Hi, @dhruvikpatel18

Did you get a chance to investigate this further?

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dhruvikpatel18 commented Mar 21, 2025

Hi @Mamaduka

The trade-off with the __unstablePastePlainText property is that it was implemented to preserve multiline formatting when pasting content like verses. When enabled, it successfully maintains line breaks because newline characters (\n) are naturally part of plain text.

However, this approach has a significant limitation. By using plain text mode, we sacrifice rich text formatting such as bold and italics, since these formatting elements only exist in the HTML version of the pasted content.
Essentially, we have two options:

  1. Enable __unstablePastePlainText: This preserves line breaks but strips all rich text formatting (bold, italics)
  2. Disable __unstablePastePlainText: This maintains rich text formatting but may handle line breaks differently as they would be processed through HTML

The current implementation forces us to choose between preserving multiline structure OR preserving rich text formatting - we can't have both simultaneously with the current code structure.

gutenberg/packages/block-editor/src/components/rich-text/event-listeners/paste-handler.js

Lines 88 to 91 in 1c05cce

if ( pastePlainText ) {
onChange( insert( value, create( { text: plainText } ) ) );
return;
}

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@Mamaduka Mamaduka Mamaduka left review comments

@hbhalodia hbhalodia hbhalodia approved these changes

@ajitbohra ajitbohra Awaiting requested review from ajitbohra ajitbohra is a code owner

@fabiankaegy fabiankaegy Awaiting requested review from fabiankaegy fabiankaegy is a code owner

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[Block] Verse Affects the Verse block [Feature] Paste [Type] Bug An existing feature does not function as intended

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Verse Block: Do Not Strip Text Formatting (italic, bold, etc.)

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