Copy/Paste text to Email Templates keeping formatting that cannot be undone

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
August 26, 2019
4 replies
522 views

I'm encountering an issue that I think has been mentioned before, but I would like try to investigate this further. In my scenario, I copy and pasted text with formatting from one source to Email Templates in Journey Orchestrator. When I review the copy in Journey Orchestrator, it looks like how I would expect with the right line-spacing and line returns.

Once I send a test, I see line returns that weren't there in Preview and line spacing occassionally missing. I've tried to edit the HTML but not seeing any additional line breaks or paragraphs. If I copy the text to TextEdit, switch to Plain Text, copy back to Email Templates modify with paragraphing and font changes the preview again looks fine but a test send still has the wrong line breaks.

To resolve, I had to copy the source to Plain Text, copy the Plain Text to a brand new template, make changes to font and paragraphing and save. The test send then matched the preview.

What is keeping the additional formatting in place on the Email Template and is there a way to make copy/paste a little cleaner and easier out-of-the-box?

journey orchestrator

Best answer by dan_ahrens

This was posted in another thread, but relevant here too. Long story short - copy/pasting in from a rich text editor is a risky proposition due to how different apps add formatting code.

What often takes place when people build email templates is they start in a document editor like MS Word or Google Docs to build out the text, links, etc and then cut and paste it into Gainsight. What they don't realize is that the word processing application adds a whole bunch of extra HTML tags that end up causing problems down the road.

Here are two examples of the same text. One was entered and built directly in JO and the other was built first in MS Word and then pasted into JO.

You can see the difference in HTML formatting tags in just the first few lines of text.

Directly built in JO:

Hi Abby ,

 

I'm a member of the Customer Success Team and wanted to send a quick email to provide you with an updated list of key resources.

Built in MS Word and pasted into JO:

Hi Abby,

<p style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 15pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm a member of the Customer

Success Team and wanted to send a quick email to provide you with an updated

list of key resources.

And then if you pasted that same text through another text editor, in this case Gmail, then pasted it into JO, things get even more interesting:

<p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 15pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Hi Abby,

<p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 15pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I'm a member of the Customer Success Team and wanted to send a quick email to provide you with an updated list of key resources.

Every one of those extra tags adds complexity and risk that some email client application will choke on that HTML code and display the content inconsistently.

And to show how insidious pasting - paste each of those groups of text into a template and look at the visual differences between these three blocks of text. The differences can be very minimal, but just frustrating enough to have you scratching your head.

Adding to this complexity is the fact that not only do different email clients interpret HTML tags differently, but some clients will alter email content when you forward it as well. Bonkers, right? That's the world of email clients and servers and why companies like Email on Acid have a business model!

kelly

Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I always try to paste any text changes directly into the HTML if possible, like you mentioned even pasting from text edit/notepad it still breaks the HTML. I know you said no BR tags are being added, are any p tags?

dan_ahrensAnswer

Expert ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was posted in another thread, but relevant here too. Long story short - copy/pasting in from a rich text editor is a risky proposition due to how different apps add formatting code.

What often takes place when people build email templates is they start in a document editor like MS Word or Google Docs to build out the text, links, etc and then cut and paste it into Gainsight. What they don't realize is that the word processing application adds a whole bunch of extra HTML tags that end up causing problems down the road.

Here are two examples of the same text. One was entered and built directly in JO and the other was built first in MS Word and then pasted into JO.

You can see the difference in HTML formatting tags in just the first few lines of text.

Directly built in JO:

Hi Abby ,

 

I'm a member of the Customer Success Team and wanted to send a quick email to provide you with an updated list of key resources.

Built in MS Word and pasted into JO:

Hi Abby,

<p style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 15pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm a member of the Customer

Success Team and wanted to send a quick email to provide you with an updated

list of key resources.

And then if you pasted that same text through another text editor, in this case Gmail, then pasted it into JO, things get even more interesting:

<p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 15pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Hi Abby,

<p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 15pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I'm a member of the Customer Success Team and wanted to send a quick email to provide you with an updated list of key resources.

Every one of those extra tags adds complexity and risk that some email client application will choke on that HTML code and display the content inconsistently.

And to show how insidious pasting - paste each of those groups of text into a template and look at the visual differences between these three blocks of text. The differences can be very minimal, but just frustrating enough to have you scratching your head.

Adding to this complexity is the fact that not only do different email clients interpret HTML tags differently, but some clients will alter email content when you forward it as well. Bonkers, right? That's the world of email clients and servers and why companies like Email on Acid have a business model!

VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint

sai_ram

Expert ⭐️⭐️

Thanks for @dan_ahrens for such a huge explanation.

@john_apple we are in the process of redesigning the Email Templates and this should fix all the formatting issues.

john_appleAuthor

Expert ⭐️

Thank you @dan_ahrens for the explanation - very helpful

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