Why does text copied from OneNote become an image when pasted into other app?

Question:

Why does text copied from OneNote become an image when pasted into other app?
 

Answer:

Hey, this is Mitch, I'm a dev on the OneNote team.
 
TL;DR - If you're seeing copied text from OneNote being pasted as an image into another app, it's actually the other app's decision to choose the image format and there's not much OneNote can do about it.
 
Hopefully this will help provide some explanation and a potential workaround.
 
The different platforms (Windows, OSX, iOS, Android) do have differences in how the clipboard works, but in general, the way copy/paste works on a platform is in two parts:

• At the time of the copy, an app publishes content to the OS clipboard and includes which formats that content supports being pasted as
• At the time of paste, an app asks the OS clipboard for content in a specific format

 
So in your OneNote scenario, even if you select only text and copy it, OneNote will tell the system that it can paste that content in a variety of formats - plaintext, html, and image being some such formats. At that point, it is up to the app being pasted into to decide which format to choose from the available formats.
 
Most apps will have a default priority ranking of formats. If you are seeing that OneNote text content is pasted as an image into another app, that likely means that other app has some logic that checks if content supports being pasted as an image first before checking if it can paste as plaintext. I'd suggest giving feedback to the app you are pasting into to prioritize HTML or plaintext format over image format.
 
Most apps nowadays will provide some way for users to specify the format to paste as. In the app you are trying to paste, try to right-click and see if they have a context menu to specify the paste format. Ctrl+Shift+V is a common keyboard shortcut to paste as plaintext.
 

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