Submitted by WayneK on 2020/06/22 17:46
How can I copy /paste multiple Firefox bookmarks so that each bookmark is in a separate cell?
 
The pasted bookmarks are always run together in a single cell.
 
I need the paste option: "Paste all lines into selected cells, creating items if necessary."
 
But I can't get this option to present itself when I copy/paste.
 
Same thing if I export to HTML first then copy/paste from that.
 
Dragging multiple links in captures only the first bookmark.
 
Do I need an import?
 
Wayne

Comments

I've had trouble before with that -- linebreaks not being recognised/remembered in copied text (usually in html format). I used paste into Evernote (last desktop version) and then copy again and it would keep better formatting.
 
Now, when I select a bunch of bookmarks in firefox and copy, just the urls get copied. If I paste these in a text editor and then copy/paste in a (pre-made empty) item in IQ, I get that "Paste all lines into selected cells, creating items if necessary." option.
Not sure if that's of any help...
 
 

WayneK

2020/06/22 20:00

In reply to by Tom

Thanks, Tom.  I think that did it.
 
When I paste them in Ecco Pro, they are pasted as separate lines.  I can then copy/paste from there to InfoQube.
 
 
Wayne
 
Edit: OK, full celebration was a little premature.  It DOES copy/paste the web address but the link text is lost.  What I was hoping for was either:
 
1) Link text in cell with embedded link (can do this with copy/paste, but only one at a time)
2) Link text in cell with address in URL field (ideal solution)

LeftEccoForIQ

2020/06/23 07:51

In reply to by WayneK

Hi Wayne,
 
there are many Firefox addons that allow you to copy the titles + URLs of opened tabs to the clipboard. Maybe experiment with some of those to find one that copies everything in the right format? You'd have to open the relevant bookmarks as tabs first, though.

Tom

2020/06/23 08:30

In reply to by WayneK

[quote=WayneK]When I paste them in Ecco Pro, they are pasted as separate lines.  I can then copy/paste from there to InfoQube.
 
Edit: OK, full celebration was a little premature.  It DOES copy/paste the web address but the link text is lost.  What I was hoping for was either:
 
1) Link text in cell with embedded link (can do this with copy/paste, but only one at a time)
2) Link text in cell with address in URL field (ideal solution)
[/quote]
Here a workaround:
 
Export Bookmarks to html
Copy and paste into Word processor (I'm using Softmaker Office 2016 on this machine)
Copy from word processor into IQ
Works correctly here.
 
Obviously ymmv with different  software, but should work

Tom

2020/06/23 08:38

In reply to by Tom

FWIW here's what gets pasted when copied from html and pasted in IQ (pastes into single item)
 
 
Pastes correctly here but with one bullet point
Looks like a problem with the DT tag.

You could try getting Firefox bookmarks into CSV format and then importing them into IQ using File > Import From > Non-Hierarchical Data.
 
The trick is getting the bookmarks into CSV format.  You could try exporting them first to an HTML, and then converting the HTML to a CSV file.  Here is a script for doing that:
 
You can also backup Firefox bookmarks to a JSON file, and you can then convert the JSON file to CSV.  Google for "convert JSON to CSV" and you will find many online converters.  Some of these say that your data will not be uploaded to the servers.  Also there are some free JSON to CSV converters mentioned here - https://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/08/featured/free-json-to-csv-converter-software-for-windows.html 
 
 
 
 

I got this to work perfectly in FF and Vivaldi:
 
Create a bookmarklet in the browser with this code:  https://gist.github.com/keikoro/699e2003d5814bc0d5224a9e78676373
(Make a new bookmark, name it something like "html to csv", and copy the code into the Location: area then save)
 
Export your browser bookmarks to a html file.
 
For FF, drag the bookmarks.html into the browser. (For Vivaldi, open the file in the browser)
 
Click the bookmarklet, then click the download csv text at the top. Save this csv file to your computer.
 
Open the IQ grid for your bookmarks then Import this csv file into IQ via File>Import>from>Non-hierarchical data  open the csv file, then map [name] to Item, url will already be mapped to url, map date added to something if you wish.
 
 
 

jimspoon

2020/06/23 22:21

In reply to by KeithB

Hi Keith,
 
Thanks for posting that.  It took me a while to figure out that I had to insert the Javascript code in the URL field of the bookmarklet, but once I did, it generated the CSV very well.
 
From what I can tell FF exports all of its bookmarks to the html file, without an option to export only a selected folder of bookmarks.  I looked for way to do that, didn't find anything except a suggestion to copy the bookmark folder to a Firefox profile with no other bookmarks, and export from that Firefox instance.
 
Also the CSV file does not preserve the folder structure of the HTML file - for example the folder path of each item could have been added as another field in the CSV file.  Perhaps the Javascript code could be edited to do this?  And perhaps as well, add fields to contain any tags and keywords contained in each FF bookmark. 
 
 

Thanks for everyone's replies.
 
I tried Tom's method with Atlantic and Word (had already tried Ecco Pro).  Neither worked.   Atlantic would not show links copied from HTML.  Word did, but when copied to InfoQube, the links were dead (they opened Google search instead of the linked websites).
 
The more complicated methods will be helpful for people with more skills than me.  So it's good to have it on here for reference.  Based on past experience, I'd spend more time trying to figure them out than it will take just doing them manually one at a time.
 
All I really need is for InfoQube to be able to recognize line breaks in the original bookmarks list or in the exported HTML, but that appears to not be possible.
 
Wayne

OK, I think I have a workable solution.
 
1) Export to HTML
2) Select multiple links in HTML
3) Paste into InfoQube (links go into single cell)
4) Links are separated by <DT>
5) Ctrl-shift-S> split by <DT>
 
This creates a list of links on separate lines.  It even removes the <DT> separators except one at the end
 
In earlier attempts, the links were not separated by symbols.  Manually splitting them was more time-consuming than single copy/pasting. 
 
Not sure what I am doing different but now the <DT> separators are showing up, which makes auto splitting possible.
 
Wayne