Simple, non-crufty copy/paste lyrics from Genius.com?

February 3, 2022 3:13 PM

I'm trying to some lyrics from Genius.com into plain text. In a misguided effort to preserve copyright in some way, the website wraps each line in a ton of junk HTML. When I copy/paste into Notepad, the text looks correct, but when I then move it to another program, line breaks are not preserved. I've tried various online tools, but I either get no line breaks, or empty lines between each line of text.

All I want is this:

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens

Rather than:

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans Way back up in the woods among the evergreens

or

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans

Way back up in the woods among the evergreens


Ref: https://genius.com/Chuck-berry-johnny-b-goode-lyrics

Don't want to use API or have to write any code.

posted by 4midori to Technology (8 answers total)

I think you just need to do "paste without formatting" - on a Mac it's usually cmd-shift-V. But actually it seems to cut and paste just fine for me (from the website in Chrome into Google Docs) without any special actions. Is this on a computer or on your phone?
posted by mskyle at 3:18 PM on February 3, 2022

Response by poster: I should have specified, I am on a Windows desktop PC. Unfortunately, cntrl+shift+V on PC does not retain linebreaks. Looking at the HTML, I think the problem is that they have put a tag around each line, and then applied some CSS to simulate linebreaks.
posted by 4midori at 3:25 PM on February 3, 2022

Super weird - it's no problem for me to cut and paste just the text:

Go, go
Go Johnny go
Go go go, Johnny go
Oh go go, Johnny go
Oh go go, Johnny go
Go, Johnny B. Goode

Maybe try a different browser?
posted by mskyle at 3:31 PM on February 3, 2022

Response by poster: Yes, I think it's a Chrome problem! I can successfully cut/paste into Firefox. @#&%*! CHROME!

Thanks, all!
posted by 4midori at 3:37 PM on February 3, 2022

Could it be an addon/extension interfering? I was able to do the same as mskyle with chrome. Incidentally they aren't using CSS to simulate line breaks.

The segment:
Go, go
Go Johnny go
Go go go, Johnny go
Oh go go, Johnny go
Oh go go, Johnny go
Go, Johnny B. Goode

at the end is full of <br> tags
posted by juv3nal at 4:31 PM on February 3, 2022

Glad you found an answer. I was going to suggest pasting into Wordpad. Sometimes web pages are on Unix systems which use a different line ending (LF only) than Windows (CRLF) . Wordpad handles them, Notpad does not.

LF = Line Feed. CR = Carriage Return. ASCII holdovers from teletype days. Yes, I was around when mainframes stomped through the data swamps
posted by TimHare at 10:19 PM on February 4, 2022

Response by poster: Maybe an add-on or extension is interfering. I'm finding the problem again, and pasting into WordPad still does not cooperate. Any other ideas folks?
posted by 4midori at 5:45 PM on February 11, 2022

If you suspect an add-on or extension, then the first step is to disable them all and see if the problem still occurs.

If it does not occur with add-ons disabled, then progressively enable them one by one, testing each time, until the culprit is isolated.
posted by juv3nal at 4:50 PM on February 12, 2022