If I paste some html into a topic to create a topic, Discourse automatically reformats the HTML (it “cooks” it), keeping some (but not all) of the underlying formatting, and removing the HTML tags from the view. Is there a way for me to later get back the original HTML that I pasted into the topic when I created it? The closest I can find is doing an API call with “raw=true” in the endpoint and see the response under response.data.post_stream.posts[0].raw, like described here. However, the “raw” text that comes back is not the original HTML. I’m not sure what it is exactly–it looks like the basic cooked topic having removed all spaces. Is there a way for me to get back that original HTML that I pasted in?

HTML isn’t preserved per se in the markdown, it’s just that some of the important tags are supported (e.g. emphasis) as we try and follow Postel’s Law where it doesn’t cause problems. What problem are you trying to solve?

Goal is to understand how the process works (relevant for a few projects). This conversation has already helped with that. I am still wondering if you can have access to the originally formatted text when you copy from miscrosoft word.

[image] JQ331: I am still wondering if you can have access to the originally formatted text when you copy from microsoft word. No. You would need to look into the javascript code that processes it on paste.

This is due to the “HTML to Markdown” handling, which occurs on paste. Here’s the relevant source file. You will notice several bits of Microsoft Word specific handling (e.g. MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst). https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/app/assets/javascripts/discourse/app/lib/to-markdown.js To ensure you get raw text, pass your paste through Notepad or similar first.

[image] riking: discourse/discourse/blob/master/app/assets/javascripts/discourse/app/lib/to-markdown.js This is very helpful. Just to clarify: why would passing through Notepad make a difference?

Doing that would strip out of all the Word formatting and leave you with just plain text. This is happening because when you “copy” something, the application actually presents multiple different views of the data to apps you paste it into. Discourse has opted for the “fancy” version with all the Word formatting, while Notepad will opt for the “plain” version. By passing it through Notepad, you leave only the “plain” version for Discourse to see.

If you’re using chrome desktop then you can use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste as plain text instead of notepad. Also in the admin site settings page, you can disable this fancy pasting behavior by unchecking the “enable rich text paste” option.

Thanks, but my goal is to keep the original formatting from microsoft word (in the raw data), not strip it down to plain text. Currently, Discourse removes a variety of the formatting–such as font size and font type, while leaving others (bold and italics seem to stay there). As a comparison, Gmail composer seems to leave all formatting. To try to keep more formatting, I suppose an alternative would be to upload a word document (not paste in text to the composer–but upload the actual doc). The problem there, I think, is that discourse does not show the contents of the upload inline (it just displays an upload link).

[image] JQ331: Thanks, but my goal is to keep the original formatting from microsoft word (in the raw data), not strip it down to plain text. Then paste the raw HTML. [image] JQ331: As a comparison, Gmail composer seems to leave all formatting. There are different goals involved. Gmail’s goal is to preserve all the formatting, whereas a forum’s goal is to keep a meaningful subset of it while preventing abuse (huge text, blinking text, OVERLY LARGE FONTS, annoying colours, etc.) As a simple example, here is some simple text’s HTML as generated by Office, present in the clipboard as text/html: @page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 115%; background: transparent } Hello there sunshine eh It looks like: @page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 115%; background: transparent } Hello there sunshine eh But when interpreted by to-markdown.js you get: **Hello there** sunshine *eh* Hello there sunshine eh [image] JQ331: Thanks, but my goal is to keep the original formatting from microsoft word (in the raw data) You cannot, unless you put it there yourself as I did in this post. If you really need it there, hide it in a comment. If you want to later convert it yourself to markdown, use something like pandoc.

[image] supermathie: There are different goals involved. Gmail’s goal is to preserve all the formatting, whereas a forum’s goal is to keep a meaningful subset of it while preventing abuse I support transferring to markdown on the post that is displayed to others for some consistency. It’s the raw entry I’m curious about. [image] supermathie: Then paste the raw HTML. How do you get the raw html of a word doc that you could paste in?

Get back the real "raw" data that created a post?

Development

roke_julian_lockhart (Mr Beedell, Roke Julian Lockhart) November 30, 2025, 2:56pm 27

@jomaxro, what is the syntax for the raw markup of a comment?

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Get back the real "raw" data that created a post?

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