Forwarded emails have spaces inserted

[Norman Boyd 4]

I have finally upgraded to EN v.10 on my Windows 10 PC. It all looks gorgeous - congrats to the team - but one issue immediately hit me  - which I can't see in the discussions

Some forwarded emails have spaces arbitrarily inserted  making many historic notes very annoying to read

See screenshot attached, (as pasting here, in Rich Text or Plain Text does not show them!)

I checked several emails and it's almost like some clients (not all!)  might have Returns in them which, when forwarded to EN, become spaces. But this didn't used to occur and switching back to Legacy they look fine

I tested it from fresh (in case it is historic emails which 'changed' in the migration to v.10) but in fact the attached shows it's not!

Any help gratefully received

 

 

[pbu 2]

Yes, same here. Very annoying. Would be great if this could be fixed. Best wishes, Peter

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Are you sure these are regular spaces ? You know that even if they look alike, in code there are wide and narrow spaces in addition to the regular ones.

I don’t encounter it in mails I have forwarded.

Maybe EN just interprets it differently from the mail program. The EN editor is basically a HTML editor and interprets input like a website.

One idea: Check if the original mail was formatted in justified print. Maybe some of it carried over.

Else issue a support ticket.

[agsteele 2,946]

I don't have this problem either.  All the messages arrive with me as MIME encoded HTML and look just as I would expect in my Email program - Thunderbird.

I wonder if you have your Email program configured to force everything to display as ASCII data/plain text.  These spaces all seem to me to spaces generated when converting a MIME document into plain text.

As far as I can tell Evernote sends its Emails as MIME/HTML which renders just fine in Thunderbird as I have it configured.

[Norman Boyd 4]

Hi PinkElephant and agsteele

Thanks for your comments. I use Thunderbird as an email client and accept default settings, as far as I remember.  I then FORWARD the email to EN and that's it. 

I just tried exporting from EN "as a "single webpage (HTML)" and got the spaces there too. 

I viewed the webpage source code and went down to the email content (as I'm sure you don't need me to add all those EN code lines!) and this is the first line of my email:

<h1 style="
font-family: Source Sans Pro,-apple-system,system-ui,Segoe UI,Roboto,
Oxygen,Ubuntu,Cantarell,Fira Sans,Droid Sans,Helvetica Neue,sans-serif;
word-break: break-all;
page-break-inside: avoid;
">
      Re: Stipple / Scribble
    </h1>      <en-note class="peso"><div class="para">Hi again David</div><div class="para"><br></div><div class="para">Spike was such a character! His       influence on British humor is very hard to underestimate!</div>

 

So in plain English:

Quote

 

Hi again David

Spike was such a character! His       influence on British humor is very hard to underestimate!

 

NOTE: The space between HIS and INFLUENCE

If it helps, when I paste on THIS page, it has no spaces:

 

Quote

 

Hi again David

 

Spike was such a character! His influence on British humor is very hard to underestimate!

 

 

 

I'm pleased Peter (above) mentions the same problem.

If you need me to search EN for other instances, I could check if it's not just Thunderbird

 

Thanks for your help

 

Norman

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Hi Norman, in fact we are just 2 other users interested in helping each and others out.

No idea what causes this weird conversion. 

Maybe you issue a support ticket to make it an official bug.

[Norman Boyd 4]

Thanks PinkElephant. Yes, I think I'll do that. Many thanks

[pbu 2]

As I said above, I am observing exactly the same behavior, Norman described. And I am using Thunderbird with (mostly) default settings, too. Thanks everyone, I will also open a support ticket. Best wishes, Peter

[ViktorN 15]

Hello,

I am having issues with formatting of emails forwarded to Evernote. The original email is a simple text with few basic formatting features. When it arrives at Evernote there are spaces randomly scattered across the note with the forwarded email.

Of course, I don't expect that EN will handle some fancy Outlook formatting. Nevertheless this issue appears when I send an email with some basic plain text and maybe with few words in bold/italics

I am attaching an example - the original email and a screenshot of what has arrived to EN. The red lines show the additional unwanted spaces.

This becomes an issue if the forwarded email is long - there are so many random spaces so it is unreadable in EN. The workaround is to copy and paste the text directly from the email client.

Thank you in advance for looking into this.

 

[gazumped 11,664]

Just to add my 2c - I save a lot of emails to Evernote,  both from the Outlook and Gmail Clippers,  and by direct forwarding from Gmail.  The layout is often... interesting - image sizes are random,  there are additional spaces (returns) between paragraphs,  and some mails present as one thin column in the centre of an (apparently) un-editable table.

For the most part I don't especially care - I'm saving them for the content rather than the layout;  and any major editing tends to cause my (EN Windows 6.25) window to freeze.  Where I might want to respond I'll attach the .MSG version of the email to the note,  and that will also give me the original layout of the message should I need that.

If I need to steal part of a message I'll copy/ paste the text into a text-only WP to strip out whatever MIME/ HTML coding is included.

Having said all of which - if Evernote can improve the conversion from email to notes I'll be happy,  but speed (or lack of it) is my main concern at present.

This is fairly typical...

 

[PinkElephant 8,103]

HTML is like a language that has many dialects. Some are close, with others it may officially be the same language, but 2 people will hardly understand each other.

Mails are often formatted with HTML. The mail clients usually allow to switch that to text (only). These should import without a problem into EN - of course not as nicely looking as before.

Who has a specific issue may contact support, with an example. But in general this is an issue that knows no end, since HTML does not stop to evolve and further split.

[Norman Boyd 4]

I thought I'd add the reply I received yesterday for others who may have seen this post:

========

Thank you for bringing in this to our attention. I confirm that this is a known issue our engineering team is currently investigating. I've gathered all the very helpful information you provided and added it to the existing issue report we're addressing. At the moment, I don't have a time or date on when this will be resolved, but please know our developers will prioritize and investigate the root cause to determine the best way to correct this issue.

Given the nature of the issue, this isn't something I can fix for you directly, and it will require a fix by the engineering team via a software update. I know that this doesn't immediately correct this issue that's interrupting your workflow, and I'd like to thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to resolve this.

=======

[IRonguru 0]

I have the identical problem, and I also use Thunderbird for email. Is there a way in which I can be notified when this problem is fixed?

PS: I have tow workarounds if I have to send the contents of the "corrupted" note to someone: (1) I retrieve the original email and forward that or (2) I copy the text frm the evernote and paste it into Word in the format that eliminates the random spaces.

ron

[PinkElephant 8,103]

What was fixed is usually mentioned in the release notes of the new client releases. It is not always a complete list, so it may happen that you try, and find out it is now working. There is no other notification method to link past support contacts with new fixes they release.

[IRonguru 0]

OK, I get that. Now if evernote fixes the problem, I assume it will NOT retroactively repair old notes, but will only be that new notes will not show the problem. Is that how it works?

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Sure, they won't touch existing notes.

[IRonguru 0]

Well, when a bad note comes up I guess I can just use one of my tricks to covert it to "proper spacing" and then create a new note that will be OK. I will keep an eye out for the fix.

ron

[ViktorN 15]

I have possibly found a workaround.

In Thunderbird, if you forward the email "As attachment" then the problem with the strange spacing disappears and the email is perfectly readable when it arrives to Evernote.

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Personally I use the "Redirect" function of the Apple Mail client.

Instead of forwarding, it sends the original e-mail to a new address. No title changes, no new lines added, no indenting of the original mail. Very clean and simple.

The "Redirect" button needs to be installed by customizing the buttons ribbon of the Mail client. It can be always reached through the E-Mail menu.

[agsteele 2,946]

4 hours ago, ViktorN said:

I have possibly found a workaround.

In Thunderbird, if you forward the email "As attachment" then the problem with the strange spacing disappears and the email is perfectly readable when it arrives to Evernote.

Get a redirect add-on for Thunderbird. That has worked well for me. I now use the Evernote add-on which does as well - perhaps a bit better.

[Norman Boyd 4]

23 hours ago, ViktorN said:

I have possibly found a workaround.

In Thunderbird, if you forward the email "As attachment" then the problem with the strange spacing disappears and the email is perfectly readable when it arrives to Evernote.

I've tried your suggestion and it works beautifully!. Thanks, I'll do that for now and hope to see the bug fixed.

[Norman Boyd 4]

18 hours ago, agsteele said:

Get a redirect add-on for Thunderbird. That has worked well for me. I now use the Evernote add-on which does as well - perhaps a bit better.

Thanks AG. I went to Thunderbird and hit another can of worms - and this isn't a Thunderbird support forum so I've taken Viktor's suggestion as my fix.

However, let me tell you (and others why)

Downloading another REDIRECT (or EnForward)  in Thunderbird  - I was reluctant to download an Add-On as permissions statements are scary: 

Have full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer

When I read the detail it becomes scarier:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-thunderbird-extensions

I searched and can see this looks to be something to do with permissions needed to migrate from one version to another but still. The message is scary!

Thanks for your suggestion, but i shall "Forward as Attachment"

 

[Norman Boyd 4]

And here's a workaround without add-ons:

Open a message  in Thunderbird

Go to VIEW > MESSAGE BODY AS >: PLAIN TEXT

Now forward any email and there are no spaces.

If you need to see an HTML email follow the above and select HTML