# Kan Ctrl+A niet gebruiken om een heel onderwerp te selecteren
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [14 november 2024 om 00:00 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047 "2024-11-14T00:00:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@artenaki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/artenaki)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 00:00 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/1 "2024-11-14T00:00:24Z")
I send the highlighted text to the Text to Speech program to avoid eye fatigue. The engine forbids this and the selection disappears. Could you please tell me why and how to fix it?
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 00:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/2 "2024-11-14T00:24:22Z")
Could you provide further information please? What do you mean by the engine, how are you sending the text and to what text to speech tool?
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### Author:  [@artenaki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/artenaki)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 01:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/3 "2024-11-14T01:02:45Z")
Speech has nothing to do with it in this case. Ctrl+A does not work in Discourse forums.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 01:06 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/4 "2024-11-14T01:06:57Z")
Great, that’s the information that we need in order to help.
Ctrl+A only selects the OP rather than the replies as well.
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### Author:  [@artenaki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/artenaki)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 01:11 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/5 "2024-11-14T01:11:33Z")
On the ntc.party forum I found a rule for uBlock. It brings back the Ctrl+A work, but breaks the quoting.
`ntc.party##+js(aopr, getSelection)`
> [@HAWK](#):
>
> Ctrl+A only selects the OP rather than the replies as well
That is, you are prohibiting the text of multiple posts from being selected.
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### Author:  [@artenaki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/artenaki)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 01:20 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/6 "2024-11-14T01:20:52Z")
Not only Ctrl+A. Selecting the text of multiple messages with the mouse does not work. The selection disappears and I can’t copy the text (to send it to the TTS engine, but in this case it doesn’t matter what I want to do with the copied text).
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### Author:  [@denvergeeks](https://meta.discourse.org/u/denvergeeks)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 07:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/7 "2024-11-14T07:02:40Z")
Hold the mouse button down (anywhere on the page) while you select all (Ctrl+A) and then copy (Ctrl+C).
OR
After selecting everything you want with the mouse, try Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C before you release the mouse button.
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### Author:  [@artenaki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/artenaki)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 12:09 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/8 "2024-11-14T12:09:15Z")
Yes, these solutions can be used, but it’s not very convenient. I suggest you make changes to the Discourse engine to make selection and copying work in a common way.
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### Author:  [@artenaki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/artenaki)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 19:21 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/9 "2024-11-14T19:21:07Z")
Why do you forbid selecting text (by default) in the browser? Is it ethical?
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [14 november 2024 om 19:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/10 "2024-11-14T19:47:15Z")
It’s likely not deliberate but there’s certainly nothing unethical about it.
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### Author:  [@vvo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vvo)
#### Post date: [15 januari 2025 om 13:22 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/11 "2025-01-15T13:22:18Z")
Is there any context as for why it was decided that CMD/CTRL+A would select only the original post? Breaking the default behavior of most apps here seems maybe not unethical but also probably not the correct default and it should be an option instead.
Using keyboard shortcut is probably considered a “advanced usage”, people willing to select only the OP content can do it with a mouse or a copy button next to the post.
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [15 januari 2025 om 22:59 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/14 "2025-01-15T22:59:41Z")
Perhaps this was related to this change?
> [@Unable to select text with a triple click](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-select-text-with-a-triple-click/345369):
>
> Not sure if this is exactly related but I wanted to point out [CleanShot 2025-01-02 at 18.33.19] notice that I am unable to select the text in the sentence unless I manually select it all, this was never the case till somewhat recently. This behavior is sometimes reproducible Using the latest Arc browser on MacOS
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [17 januari 2025 om 06:22 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/15 "2025-01-17T06:22:10Z")
Oh confirmed @saquetim this is a side effect to be aware of.
The issue does not happen in Firefox… but it kind of chokes.
Overall my tip here would be to avoid CTRL+A on a topic cause you will get the sidebar and a bunch of mess.
Instead CTRL+P, which will bring up the `print` view: [https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/print](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-ctrl-a-to-select-and-entire-topic/336047/print)
This view is far better fit for purpose given it has a print stylesheet and CTRL+A works great there.
Not sure if we can restore the old behavior on Chrome cause by restoring it we may end up breaking triple click on a post 😢