(Archived) Trouble pasting bullet lists out of evernote?

[jml 0]

Whenever I paste lists out of evernote into Outlook, the formatting is often buggy. In particular, there is often an empty bulleted item at the start of a set of sublists. So it looks something like this in the email:

 * Foo
    *
    * First
    * Second
 * Bar

While I'm at it, is there any chance that we'll be able to reclaim Tab and Shift-Tab for outline mode? That is pretty much all I use Evernote for and now Shift-Tab has been changed to be used in navigation (though strangely Tab without the shift doesn't work, so it is irritatingly asymmetrical). I know can use Ctrl-M but I'm just not used to it.

Thanks,

Justin

[jml 0]

I hit send too fast.

The other weird bug is that the text usually imports as Tahoma 13.5, even though it is Tahoma 10 in Evernote. Also, sometimes, the font data gets lost entirely and it imports as Times New Roman in Outlook. Anybody else seeing this?

[JuliaK 0]

I confirm the bug with the font size (filed case 273168), but can not reproduce the issue with bulleted list. Which versions of Outlook and Evernote are you using?

[sparc_spread 0]

I am having the same problem. It is literally impossible to paste bulleted lists from Evernote into Outlook. This is a major bug, since many people use bulleted lists for meeting notes, etc.

Evernote version: 4.5.8.7356 (267864) Public

Outlook version: 14.0.5128.5000 (32-bit)

Windows version: Windows 7 Professional SP1

To be clear, the bug I am referring to is the empty bulleted item at the beginning of each sublist - the first issue mentioned by the first poster in this thread.

Other people I know have the same issue. This is really basic and it should be fixed.

Can you please also point me to the bug tracking site? I am unable to find it via Google.

Thanks.

[jefito 5,589]

When I run into trouble with copy/paste issues on Windows, I pull out the ClipSpy tool that I found on the web. It allows you to examine what's been put on the clipboard, both the format type and content.

You don't say exactly what your problem is, but when I tried it, I saw in ClipSpy that the copied list was on the clipboard in several formats, ENML (Evernote's format), several text formats, and also HTML. I assume that Outlook would be able to understand HTML, and that would be the preferable choice. When I examined the HTML content, and saw that Evernote was encoding the bulleted list as an HTML list <ul><li>...</li>...</ul> which seems to make sense. So I pasted the clip into a new Outlook note, and it seemed to paste in fine. Pasted into MS Word, though and it was not so nice; each subitem list had an extra, empty bullet at the start of the list. Not sure what that's all about.

The fonts used were correct in the HTML fragment that's on the clipboard, at least the typeface name. As regards the size, unformatted text seems to be put into the HTML fragment without specific font height value: mine was marked as font-size "medium", which I suppose is used to ameliorate differences between different clients that receive the clip. I think if you format the text explicitly, you should get the font height as specified.

[sparc_spread 0]

I do say exactly what my problem is:

"To be clear, the bug I am referring to is the empty bulleted item at the beginning of each sublist - the first issue mentioned by the first poster in this thread."

AKA, this:

* Foo

*

* First

* Second

* Bar

Right now, when I paste any bullet list with any kind of nesting from Evernote into Outlook, I get results like the one above.

Are you saying that I should use ClipSpy to make the copy, then pick the HTML out of ClipSpy and paste that into Outlook? I appreciate the workaround but having to do this means this is still a bug. Evernote is supposed to increase productivity, not add additional copy / pasting steps to our workflow.

[jefito 5,589]

No. ClipSpy is a tool that helps to diagnose problems with the clipboard. In this case, I used it to see what Evernote is putting on the clipboard. In the case that you provide here, the HTML looks like:

<html>
   <body>
      <div>
         <ul style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Corbel; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium;">
            <li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(102, 0, 102); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Foo</span></li>
            <li style="list-style: none; display: inline">
               <ul>
                  <li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(102, 0, 102); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">First</span></li>
                  <li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(102, 0, 102); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Second</span></li>
               </ul>
            </li>
            <li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(102, 0, 102); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Bar</span></li>
         </ul>
         <br>
      </div>
   </body>
</html>

Seems reasonable, but I can't claim to be an HTML guru.

The problem that you're seeing is more-or-less what I see with MS Word. Wondering whether you are using the option that causes Outlook to use MS Word for editing emails; that would explain why what I see is different.

[sparc_spread 0]

I'm using Outlook 2010. It looks like there's no way to turn off Word as the editor:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933793

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-outlook/can-i-turn-off-word-as-the-email-editor-in-outlook/d25fb752-4ff4-4aa0-9d6f-b07c3efc09d2

This seems like a Microsoft issue now, not an Evernote issue. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[jefito 5,589]

This seems like a Microsoft issue now, not an Evernote issue. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Maybe. As I said, I am not an HTML guru, so there may be some subtlety that I missed in the markup that Evernote is generating. Good that it's repeatable, though.

[srsbsc 0]

Solution: make the font and size consistent between Word and Evernote before pasting. The easiest way to do this is to make the default font and size identical on both sides.

 

Thanks for the tip about the Microsoft Word connection. This has been bugging me for SO long!