Easy way to quote multiple quotes from different postings in the same thread?

I give up trying to figure this out on my own.  Personally I hate computers because there doesn't appear to be a standard for everything.

When I click "quote" it automatically brings me to my reply with the entirety of the post that I wanted to quote.  

First off, how do I get it to only quote the section that I want to quote?  I've done that on other forums by highlighting the words I want to quote.  When I do that here it still quotes the entire post. (In the past I've manually had to edit down what I specifically want to quote)

Secondly, once I've hit quote and am brought to my reply, I no longer see the other posts in the thread.  I can't then reference them in an attempt to quote more posts.  But in other forums I have the ability to quote from multiple threads by hitting the "apple" key.

Yes, I'm on a Mac.  Thanks for any help!

Let's see if this helps..... (wait for it...wait for it..... patience....)......

S. Marshall wrote:I give up trying to figure this out on my own.  Personally I hate computers because there doesn't appear to be a standard for everything.

When I click "quote" it automatically brings me to my reply with the entirety of the post that I wanted to quote.  

First off, how do I get it to only quote the section that I want to quote?  I've done that on other forums by highlighting the words I want to quote.  When I do that here it still quotes the entire post. (In the past I've manually had to edit down what I specifically want to quote)

Secondly, once I've hit quote and am brought to my reply, I no longer see the other posts in the thread.  I can't then reference them in an attempt to quote more posts.  But in other forums I have the ability to quote from multiple threads by hitting the "apple" key.

Yes, I'm on a Mac.  Thanks for any help!

Your quotation, pasted into WordPad

John Weiland wrote:Let's see if this helps..... (wait for it...wait for it..... patience....)......

My quotation, pasted into the same WordPad page.

S. Marshall wrote:I give up trying to figure this out on my own ......(snip).....
Yes, I'm on a Mac.  Thanks for any help!

Your quote, copied and pasted under the previous pasted text and then the middle section deleted.  
For things like this, there must be some simple text editor in the MacOS that allows you to copy and paste to achieve the same results.  I use WordPad on a PC, ..... maybe would have used a 'sticky' back in the day on a Mac?   I find it easiest to copy and paste the different quotations from those to whom I wish to respond, and then copy and past the final work back into the 'Reply' window.  Hope this may help??......

So glad you asked, S. Your local computer dinosaur is here to help - except I'm not on a Mac, so if it doesn't work, maybe a more competent staff member will come and help!

If instead of pushing the quote button, you push the "Reply" button at the bottom of the page, you get a box to type into which might look like this:


The 6th button from the left, says "Quote". If you push it, you get this:


If you click your curser in between the two sets of brackets, you can cut and copy the text you want to quote into that space.

In fact, I have a feeling that if you just type out the [word] at the start and [/word] at the end, that will also work, but now we're straying deep into the ancient weeds of dinosaur fodder... I had to substitute "word" for "quote" because otherwise weird things would have happened.

Also, under this post in the area they call the signature and above my badge bits, there are two excellent links.  This one:
https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
takes you to a whole pg of helpful links that might answer other questions you have.

I hope this helps!

Thanks, and I've learned something.

Using John's technique of copy and pasting I quoted John here:

John Weiland wrote:
Your quotation, pasted into WordPad

My quotation, pasted into the same WordPad page.

Using a text editing program is probably the cleanest way to do this.  But below Jay mentions simply quoting the first source and then copying all the text in the reply you created, go back, and next quote the second quote you want to quote, which will bring you to a new reply box where you then have to paste the first quote before it.

For additional quotes you need to repeat this process.  Ultimately you are left with a nightmare reply full of quotes (which is made much worse if the quote your quoting also contains quotes).

Jay Angler wrote:....

As you can see, just now I simply gave up on Jay's quote because it contained quotes and it was too confusing and not worth my time correcting.

This is because it appears you CANNOT only quote a section of the quote (by highlighting it before hitting quote, for instance).  You must then edit the quote down manually.

Jays suggestion to look at the thread he posted addresses this very question.

In general the moderators prefer not to use quotes excessively. It can cause problems in threads that need moderation; if you quote something that then gets moderated your comment now needs moderating as well. It multiplies the workload substantially.

I try to avoid quoting large sections, and only use it where it is needed for clarity.

Michael Cox wrote:I try to avoid quoting large sections, and only use it where it is needed for clarity.

As staff, I totally agree. On my system, I can just highlight and delete anything I don't want using whichever quote button - here I quoted Michael's whole post and deleted what wasn't needed. I particularly make sure that unnecessary pictures are removed as they can also make threads slow to load.

However, it sounds from S. Marshall's statement here:

For additional quotes you need to repeat this process.  Ultimately you are left with a nightmare reply full of quotes (which is made much worse if the quote your quoting also contains quotes).

That on a Mac, one has to highlight and quote an entire post using my suggested method. On my computer, I clicked the quote button, highlighted and did Cnt C on just the portion of her post which now shows in the quotes, did Cnt V to paste it in, and I'm done.

Then I clicked the Preview button to see how it looks, although for some reason, Attachments don't show up.

This brings me to another question.  I assumed a poster is only notified that someone responded to their post if you used the Quote function.  Is this true (and does this make sense)?  For instance, I did not quote Jay or Michael, but do they still get notified when I respond to them?

Or do you automatically get notifications on any thread you commented in when there is a new reply?

Jay, you mentioned manually doing this edit of a quote, but then wrote, "I clicked the quote button, highlighted and did Cnt C on just the portion of her post which now shows in the quotes, did Cnt V to paste it in, and I'm done. "
When you say you "did Cnt C on just the portion of a post" then that would not include the brackets for the actually QUOTE command.  I guess you know to always type it out, but then you have to memorize the user name as well to quote who wrote that, right?  So simply copying the portion you want to post is not all you do, correct?

Method 1: a) I pushed the quote button and then I inserted this line above it.

S. Marshall wrote:When you say you "did Cnt C on just the portion of a post" then that would not include the brackets for the actually QUOTE command.  I guess you know to always type it out, but then you have to memorize the user name as well to quote who wrote that, right?  So simply copying the portion you want to post is not all you do, correct?

b) I highlighted any text I didn't want and clicked delete.  
c) notice that your name shows up *inside* the light-coloured quote box and is in bold.

Method 2: a) I copy/paste or I simply type out your name then I hit the quote button in the bar above the reply box.
S. Marshall wrote:

correct?

b) then I copy the part of the post I want to quote and paste it in between the two quote symbols.
c) notice that your name shows up *outside* the quote box and isn't in bold. I suppose I could paste it inside the quotes, but I suspect I'd mess things up.

So yes, there are more steps, but if you've got a complicated post that you're replying to, and you want to comment on various parts of it, to me, it's worth the time and effort.

And wrote:

Or do you automatically get notifications on any thread you commented in when there is a new reply?

My settings are such that any time anyone adds a post to a thread I've already contributed to, I get an email. It doesn't tell me if someone quoted me or not.

You'll notice that here, I just added "and wrote" rather than writing out your name again. The idea of the quote system is to help people see the context quickly if what they're writing relates specifically to what was said by another member. Unlike other forms of social media where you can reply right below someone else' comment, on permies, replies are always at the end of the thread. We solve possible confusion from that by having the quote button, but as Michael Cox said, so long as you're not plagiarizing or confusing other members, there no need to quote whole posts, and good reasons not to. It may take a bit more time and effort, but the result is a more informative, easier to read thread.

Staff do have a special button that allows us to add a "Staff Note" to a person's post. This is used a lot in the SKIP program, however, if there's a messed up link and we want people to have the correct link available, Staff can add a corrected version. When members come across things like that, feel free to hit the "!Repot" button and tell staff what the problem is and if it can be fixed with a Staff Note, we will do so. Sometimes, we fix it by contacting the member and asking them to fix it, but that's our job!

You can also copy the text you want to quote into your reply box, then, while the text you copied is highlighted, hit the quote button. I find this easier to do than Jay's method of pasting text in between the bracketed words. I'm usually on my phone in desktop view, and things are way too small to expect to get my cursor in the right place easily. That method doesn't help you with getting the name of the person being quoted in there, though.

I most often use the other method mentioned of quoting the whole post, then manually removing the bits I don't want. Yes, it's cumbersome.

Secondly, once I've hit quote and am brought to my reply, I no longer see the other posts in the thread.  I can't then reference them in an attempt to quote more posts

If you scroll down past the reply box, past the preview and submit buttons, can you see the previous posts in the thread? I'm on my phone at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it looks the same when I'm on my laptop (a MacBook).

Do they have clipboard managers for other operating systems? I'd imagine they must exist elsewhere. I personally don't use them, but some Linux distributions have them out of the box, and there are several available to me on my current system. One of my favorite features that got me hooked on Linux early on is that there are two separate buffers, one where I right click and cut or copy for pasting later, and a second one where I just highlight text and paste with middle click. It makes it amazingly convenient if I want to transfer two ideas from a post or other text online I want to quote. With that and opening a second tab, it is easy enough for me to work through quotes. I will definitely support the idea of using a document program and saving frequently if you are working on a particularly long post so you don't lose your progress in case something goes wrong.

So I searched and apparently they have one by default in Windows. Here's a quick video that helps you check to make sure it is enabled and then you can press the Windows key + V to bring it up. You can copy a bunch of things and then pull up the clipboard manager to scroll through it. I'm sure there are other ways to go about it and do the same thing on other operating systems, so you may want to search clipboard managers and look in to it further.