Issue with new Rise dialogue box when pasting text

Sep 01, 2017

Hi,

I've just come back to building in Rise after  short break. What used to be a neat copy and paste from my Word storyboard, has suddenly turned into a hellish workaround!

When I paste text from a Word document, I get a dialogue box asking if I want to keep source formatting or clean up - irritation number one. Number two, no matter which option I choose, my text appears in a text box in Rise. I then have to cut the text, delete the block with the text box and re-paste it into a new text block!

Arg, tell me there is a better way. It used to be so quick and easy, this addition is not user friendly at all.

28 Replies
Damala Scales Ghosh

Hi Kelly-Anne and Ashley, just read the other thread and now I understand your question Kelly-Anne.

I agree with you - I would prefer if copy and paste from Word worked the old way, so matched the Rise text block formatting, from which I can easily select and reformat with the great new feature added, or leave as is which I'm guessing most people will be doing if they are setting global text styles or doing a font hack which we do.

My main bug though was the text box that came with a paste from Word in the new version of Rise. About to check on this now. It is a MAJOR pain! I shouldn't have to save to PDF and paste from that to avoid this weird bug. Have tried in both Firefox and Chrome and get it with both.

Damala Scales Ghosh

Hi Crystal, thanks, have added as an attachment. I've just done a little testing, and it doesn't happen with all word documents. I've tested with two totally different storyboards (text within tables) and getting this with both. Also tested with a fresh word doc and another word doc with text within a table, and didn't get this result. 

I can't see any pattern!

Crystal Horn

I see what you're saying, but I can't make it happen in my own fresh Word doc with tabled text, either.

Does pasting it onto another application (like Wordpad or Notepad) strip that formatting?

We can definitely have a closer look.  If you're able to share the Word doc that is producing that effect in Rise, can you submit a case for our engineers to inspect?  If you're highlighting just the text, I would not expect the table outlines to copy over with it.

Michelle Allan

Hi Crystal,

We're having a similar problem where we can't seem to strip out formatting.

We've tried using the 'Ctrl + Shift + V' shortcut to paste without formatting like we normally do but it's not working. We've also tried pasting into a plain text document, browser search bar and HTML stripper webpage before copying into Rise but we're still seeing bold formatting, different font weights (when you unbold the bolded text it's lighter than the rest) and sizes, and grey backgrounds that copy across regardless of our efforts.

At first we though it may just have been a bug in the flashcard block but it's happening with the paragraph block too.

Cheers,
Mich

Donald Kerns

I have suspended development using Rise until Articulate gets this fixed (yes, I have submitted a case with image/video). We have wasted so much time trying to get around the removal of Word format clearing dialog. It has caused nothing but problems! Rise seems to be remembering the last format I used (even though I am now pasting plain text, and the plain text has been verified via various methods) and Rise still formats the pasted text with the previous format used (rather than placing it as plain text). The only consistent [non]-solution I have found is to delete blocks and start over from scratch and type content rather than paste plain text into the block.

Rise seems to be remembering the last format I used (even though I am now pasting plain text, and the plain text has been verified via various methods); yet, Rise still formats the pasted text with the previous format used (rather than placing it in as plain text). The only consistent [non]-solution I have found is to completely delete blocks and start over from scratch and type content rather than paste any plain text into the block. Once you have formatted a content block, you have no way to ever clear it!

I suggest bringing back the strip Word popup box and include an option to turn it off (for those who do not want the popup every time). If we can eliminate all the formatting issues by using the option to strip out all the word formatting, I will live with the frequent pop-up prompt!. IMHO, Articulate's response/"cure" to concerns about the repeated pop-up is far worse than the original problem.

What we also need/want is an HTML button in formatting, so we can manually edit/fix Rise's poor formatting (i.e., bullets not formatted as true bullets with hanging indents, cannot format the bullet size, color, or line spacing etc.).

Very disappointed with Rise/Articulate right now... I have attached the formatting/editing interface available in EasyGenerator (a Rise competitor). There are many better features in Rise, however, if the formatting doesn't get resolved soon, I may have no choice but to look elsewhere (due to pending deadlines)...

Kelly-Anne Slatton

Thank you for changing this back! So happy right now.

Wondering if it is possible to have bullets be cleared out too when pasting into a list block and quiz lesson since there wouldn't be a need for duplicate bullets? Before the update I could paste text from bulleted lists into both of these without the bullet/letter/number appearing.

Kelly-Anne Slatton

Thanks Ashley!

Wanted to tack something else onto this as it sort of seems like a related problem with how formatting is pasted in, but also seems buggy on its own too. As you can see from the peek video below when you paste into a note block the text doesn't format to bold as it should... but you can also see when I add a note block it doesn't look bold, then when I click out of the block library it's bold again, then if I open the block library again the bold goes away, etc.

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/7dfe84ce-e490-4617-b93d-fa201c33167b/review

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Thanks for the video Kelly! 

The note block should be bold by default, and you can always change it. Copying in text kept the bold if it was applied or not.

I did see the same where clicking around the note block went from bold to not bold, and I could do that countless times until I clicked inside the block - then everything stayed as is it. I'll shared that with our team and see what we can do.

In the meantime, click inside the block once you've added the Notes blocks you need and you should be good to go from there. 

Kelly-Anne Slatton

Hi Ashley,

Yes, when clicking inside the notes block it goes back to bold, but as referenced in my video when you paste text in it is no longer bold and you have to select all the text and make it bold again manually. I have also noticed today that old notes blocks that were in place prior to the recent update and were correctly bolded are no longer bold... Really hoping I don't have to search through hundreds of pages of rise to re-bold all of those...

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Kelly-Anne,

As I was testing I could set it to unbold, and back to bold and that kept the formatting. The same with setting it to unbold and that kept the formatting. 

I did share your video and one showing my steps with my team so that they can look into it , as there is definitely some inconsistency there! I'll let them know about your current course too and see what other options there are.

Kelly-Anne Slatton

Hi Ashley,

Another issue I have been having since the updates is that when I paste I am getting what I assume to be weird backend formatting stuff pasted in too (see screenshot). This "extra info" is not the same every time (I can copy and paste the same line 3 different times and get different amounts of info) and only appears when pasting into rise, but not into an email, word document, etc... This is happening in the latest version of Chrome but doesn't seem to be happening in the latest version of firefox. I would be happy to just use firefox, but have been forced to use chrome recently based on the other issue I was having of the screen jumping away from the block I was working on that is still being looked into...

Donald Kerns

What we really need in Rise is an [HTML] button that reveals (and allows us to edit) the HTML code so we can see/fix whatever errant code is being pasted and retained.

This is particularly true when dealing with Rises' "fake bullets" in their text formatting toolbar (they are not hanging indent bullets like every other HTML editor on the Internet!)  and trying to indent to the proper level using the indent/outdent buttons without messing up other content can be challenging. 

Adding an [HTML] button should be a no-brainer for Articulate!

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