I read the posts about text formatting/Pasting but could find an answer to my problem.

When I copy & paste a formatted text from an extermal source (MSWord, email, etc...) into a text field in FM it does not retain the original formatting (bold, color, underline, bullets, etc...); the text is pasted as plain text. The only option I have under Paste Special is unformatted text. How to retain the original format?

Hi,

The text attributes, (bold, color,etc) are stored in the metadata layer of the application and applied to the text upon viewing. The text and attributes are actually two separate things. Copy and paste only works in filemaker on the actual text, because of the great differences in which the metadata is stored across software packages. For example when we converted our ms excell worksheets from mac format to windows format a few years ago, all fields that were bold on the mac version were plain on the windows version and plain on mac version were bold on windows. Just a difference in the way the metadata attributes were stored and referenced.

Maybe there is a trick I don't know, but I don't know of a way to bring over the attributes with the pasted text.

HTH,

Tim

Since version 7, FileMaker has been retaining the style of text pasted from another application. Of course, this can be good or bad depending on what you want to have happen. Personally, I prefer to control the font styles for text in my solution by using auto-enter calcs to remove such formatting.

I'm suprised you guys are having different results. Maybe it's a problem with the program you're copying from, or maybe there's a difference between Mac & Windows functionaliy here.

Hi Tim:

Thanks for the feedback. In the help file it does say that text attributes are not copied. I just thought someone had a work around.

Thanks

Hi Ender:

I am surprised too because one of the older posts on this topic had the opposite problem.

I am cut&pasting from MS Word, emails and using Windows. Probably there is an on/off feature in FM that allow the user to have cut&paste with or without formatting that I don't know of.

Edited August 25, 200619 yr by Guest

Hi Ender,

It could be mac thing, but in windows FM8A no attributes are copied. I tried using a ms word text with bold & color attributes, getting the results described.

Tim