Is there a way to exclude an HTML span from appearing in copy-and-paste?

Question

I have a large, multiline body of HTML, resulting from applying an explicit line breaking algorithm to a text string. I'd like to add spans within that HTML to indicate where I've forced a line break, by embedding certain spans with a particular character.

However, if I actually use a character it appears when multiple lines are copied and pasted elsewhere. I can use a span with an image, but that is significantly less efficient.

Is there some other way?

Answer 1

No, but CSS Generated content is not copied:

span::after {
  content: "<I won't be copied>";
  display: block;
}

<div>
  Hello<span></span>World!<span></span>Foo<span></span>Bar<span></span>Baz
</div>

Of course, you should only use this for styling purposes, not for content.