Formatting in "Send A Message" is Not Working

I am an Exec Sec and have been trying to use the Send A Message app. It does NOT format text correctly. No matter whether I import unformatted text from Notepad or formatted text from Word, or even then try to format it inside SaM, the results is the same... It does NOT behave correctly. It does not recognize line breaks, and sometimes it does not recognize text formatting like bolding.

This may seem like a small thing but, because of the COVID restrictions on our meetings, we are needing to send a long list of meeting change information with Zoom links. The information that is presented is hard to make sense of because there are no breaks which allow one to determine where one topic ends and another one starts.

I have read several strings and responses saying that essentially "...it was never designed to be a full-featured text editor". It won't even do MINIMAL formatting correctly. There aren't even any instructions for how to use it. Please, you can do better. This is not that complex.

phillipsac wrote:Please, you can do better. This is not that complex.

The Tech Forum is primarily user-to-user help and support. Any expectations of those with the ability to make decisions may see this discussion or for anyone who can pass information presented in topic discussions (threads) to those responsible is not likely.

The best method of getting your feedback to those who can work the issue is through the feedback link found at the bottom of the web page with the issue. If there is not a link on that page then use the link found on the main website page.

jdlessley wrote:

phillipsac wrote:Please, you can do better. This is not that complex.

The Tech Forum is primarily user-to-user help and support. Any expectations of those with the ability to make decisions may see this discussion or for anyone who can pass information presented in topic discussions (threads) to those responsible is not likely.

The best method of getting your feedback to those who can work the issue is through the feedback link found at the bottom of the web page with the issue. If there is not a link on that page then use the link found on the main website page.

Thanks. I've already left feedback. Any thoughts on this issue? I know I'm not the only one finding it problematic.

phillipsac wrote:Thanks. I've already left feedback. Any thoughts on this issue? I know I'm not the only one finding it problematic.

Another suggestion I have seen in other places in the forums is to bug your bishop or stake president about it so he can push the suggestion up his chain of command. The idea is that if enough stake presidents raise an issue or make a suggestion, Church headquarters is likely to listen.

(Edited once to fix a typo.)

rmrichesjr wrote:

phillipsac wrote:Thanks. I've already left feedback. Any thoughts on this issue? I know I'm not the only one finding it problematic.

Another suggestion I have seen in other places in the forums is to bug your bishop or stake president about it so he can push the suggestion up his chain of command. The idea is that if enough stake presidents raise an issue or make a suggestion, Church headquarters is likely to listen.

(Edited once to fix a typo.)

Thanks. That's a good idea. Seems to be the "squeaky wheel" syndrome.

I'm not able to test to be sure, but my suspicion is that the root problem has to do with pasting from somewhere else into the editor. Having some experience with markdown and HTML editors, copy/paste is hard to get right for formatted text and text with line breaks. The editor has to strip out some of the invisible content that's pasted (especially when pasting from Word, which has a lot of XML fluff), but leave other parts of it in, like bold and italic, and convert things like line breaks from <p> tags to \n new lines or vice versa... Then there are security issues if you don't get it right, for example, if someone is able to paste in an <iframe> or some JavaScript. You have to account for drag-and-drop in addition to copy/paste. It's easiest (though not the best from a user perspective) to strip out all formatting and line breaks when pasting.

I have found that almost any formatting in the text that is pasted in to Send a Message interferes with the minimal formatting Send a Message does on its own.

I have also found that once text is placed in Send a Message, pasted or typed, Send a Message does not do well when I try to edit the text, move anything around, or make any other adjustments. This seems to be because Send a Message is formatting the text using basic html behind the scenes, and when you move things around, it does not know how to move the html tags around with the text.

The worst example is line spacing. Any time I decide to split a paragraph in two, or combine two paragraphs, Send a Message does not seem to get it right. I usually wind up editing my original generic text and starting over again with the pasting.

I have had success with bold, italics, and underlining. Once the text is in Send a Message, if I bold, italicize, or underline it, the change usually sticks. The problem then is that some email clients do not honor the html formatting and the highlights are not there. Most do, however.

So I keep it very simple, and treat the message area of Send a Message the same way I would treat a blank piece of paper in a typewriter, remembering that this particular electronic piece of paper has an attitude; And that works well enough for me.

I have mentioned it a few times, but I'll reiterate it again:

Send a Message was never intended to support more than basic formatting. When we developed that feature, there was some discussion about how much formatting to support, ranging from none at all to a full-featured text editor. The decision was ultimately made to support some basic formatting but not try to be a full-featured email editor. lajackson's experience (get the text in and then support some basic line spacing and bold/italic/underline) matches that decision.

I always use the "Paste as plain text" to copy-paste into the message editor, then I reformat it directly within the Send a Message editor itself. This strips away all the hidden formatting and although it creates a bit more work to reformat everything, I can be reasonably sure that what I see is what I'll get after it gets sent. Worth the extra few minutes of work.

I discovered a solution to the random line spacing while sending Zoom invites out to our ward members. Here is how I solved the unwanted double line spacing:
1. Paste your text into the LDS "Send Message" body.
2. Apply bullet points to the section you want single spaced.
3. While still highlighted, click on the bullet points again to toggle them off.

The text will now be sent as single spaced. Works every time, even when pasting from Word. Apparently formatting your text into bullet points removes the complex Word formatting. When you toggle the bullet points off, it formats the text in single spaced lines.