This article was first published in the July, 2009, issue of
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Andy writes:

I enjoy working with the text features in FCP slightly more than going to the dentist, but only slightly less than extracting my own teeth. Whenever I create text somewhere else (InDesign, Word, TextEdit, whatever) and then copy it and paste it into FCP, it automatically brings it in in one really, really long single line. It doesn’t seem to matter how I format it or break the lines or add spaces, it just dumps it into the world’s longest run-on sentence. Is there a trick I don’t know? Or am I forever doomed to reformatting endless lists of names and titles in one of the most user un-friendly features of an otherwise fantastic program. Thank you in advance for your wise, all-knowing answer, and for being gentle if the answer is “you’re screwed.”

Larry replies: Hmmm... this works fine for me.

I just created a new Text Edit document. Added some names, with a return after each line. Copied it to the clipboard. Pasted it into a new Full Text clip in the Viewer of FCP. All carriage returns were displayed properly.

However, Andy couldn't get this to work the way I did. After an email exchange, we found the source of the problem....

Andy writes:

Using TextEdit, I went into the preferences where, by default, the text format was Rich Text, and I changed it to Plain Text. After that I was able to copy and paste into FCP and the formatting was intact.

Just for the heck of it I then tried copying and pasting from Adobe InDesign into FCP but it did not work. Copy from InDesign then paste into TextEdit then copy and paste into FCP and it does work.

Larry adds: The reason is that all these other programs add hidden codes to help format your text. You don't see them, but they are carried in the clipboard when you copy the text. FCP doesn't understand these codes, so it doesn't know what to do about the text. So it ignore it.

To copy text into a Final Cut Pro clip, copy it from your source application, then paste it into a plain text document in Text Edit. Copy it again, which remove these hidden codes, and paste it into Final Cut.

Works great.

Larry Jordan is a post-production consultant and an Apple-Certified Trainer in Digital Media with over 25 years experience as producer, director and editor with network, local and corporate credits. Based in Los Angeles, he's a member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America.

The information in this article is believed to be accurate at the time of publication. However, the author assumes no liability in case things go wrong. Please use your best judgment in applying these suggestions.

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