diff --git a/pd/nw/pd_canvas.js b/pd/nw/pd_canvas.js
index 3a9a97bd7..02cd70157 100644
--- a/pd/nw/pd_canvas.js
+++ b/pd/nw/pd_canvas.js
@@ -717,8 +717,23 @@ var canvas_events = (function() {
             },
             text_paste: function(evt) {
                 evt.preventDefault();
-                document.execCommand("insertText", false,
-                    evt.clipboardData.getData("text"));
+                var text = evt.clipboardData.getData("text");
+                // ag: We need to insert each line individually here, with
+                // line breaks in between. Otherwise the behavior of
+                // "insertText" is to insert a *paragraph* break between
+                // lines, so that we get two newlines for each newline in the
+                // input. (Who thought that this was a good design? There's
+                // probably a reason why this WebKit API is deprecated, but
+                // since there's no replacement for it, we have to use it.)
+                // Also note that we skip the line break at the end of the
+                // paste buffer, since it will be stripped off on the C side
+                // during object creation anyway.
+                var lines = text.split("\n");
+                for (var i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
+                    document.execCommand("insertText", false, lines[i]);
+                    if (i < lines.length-1)
+                        document.execCommand("insertLineBreak", false);
+                }
                 grow_svg_for_element(textbox());
             },
             floating_text_click: function(evt) {
diff --git a/pd/nw/pdgui.js b/pd/nw/pdgui.js
index d69fdcde4..1fb69ef16 100644
--- a/pd/nw/pdgui.js
+++ b/pd/nw/pdgui.js
@@ -3794,13 +3794,16 @@ function text_to_tspans(cid, svg_text, text) {
     len = lines.length;
     // Get fontsize (minus the trailing "px")
     fontsize = svg_text.getAttribute("font-size").slice(0, -2);
+    var dy = text_line_height_kludge(+fontsize, "gui");
     for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
+        // ag: We need to specify absolute y offsets for the baseline
+        // positions here. Relative dy offsets, which were used previously,
+        // don't advance the y position if no glyphs are rendered, so empty
+        // lines aren't rendered correctly.
         tspan = create_item(cid, "tspan", {
-            dy: i == 0 ? 0 : text_line_height_kludge(+fontsize, "gui") + "px",
+            y: ((i+1)*dy) + "px",
             x: 0
         });
-        // tspan needs at least one char so that empty lines are preserved
-        if (lines[i] == "") lines[i] = " ";
         // find a way to abstract away the canvas array and the DOM here
         text_node = patchwin[cid].window.document
                     .createTextNode(lines[i]);
diff --git a/pd/src/g_rtext.c b/pd/src/g_rtext.c
index 98a6ecab7..69e056d27 100644
--- a/pd/src/g_rtext.c
+++ b/pd/src/g_rtext.c
@@ -312,17 +312,6 @@ static void rtext_senditup(t_rtext *x, int action, int *widthp, int *heightp,
                 ncolumns = foundit_c;
             nlines++;
         }
-        // append new line in case we end our input with an \n
-        // suppressed at the end of a comment (backport from pd-l2ork)
-        int iscomment = pd_class(&x->x_text->te_pd) == text_class &&
-            x->x_text->te_type == T_TEXT;
-        if (!iscomment && x_bufsize_c > 0 && (x->x_buf[x->x_bufsize - 1] == '\n' || x->x_buf[x->x_bufsize - 1] == '\v'))
-        {
-            nlines++;
-            tempbuf[outchars_b++] = '\n';
-            //tempbuf[outchars_b] = '\0';
-            //outchars_b++;
-        }
         if (!reportedindex)
             *indexp = outchars_b;
         if (nlines < 1) nlines = 1;
@@ -653,8 +642,7 @@ void rtext_activate(t_rtext *x, int state)
        null terminated. If this becomes a problem we can revisit
        it later */
     tmpbuf = t_getbytes(x->x_bufsize + 1);
-    sprintf(tmpbuf, "%.*s", (int)x->x_bufsize, x->x_buf);
-    /* in case x_bufsize is 0... */
+    snprintf(tmpbuf, x->x_bufsize+1, "%s", x->x_buf);
     tmpbuf[x->x_bufsize] = '\0';
     gui_vmess("gui_textarea", "xssiiiisiiiiiii",
         canvas,