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Formatting Issues with Copy and Pasted text

Please, please, fix the editor so that when text is pasted in from another program, it appears with the DESTINATION formatting (the existing formatting of the campaign). I waste so much time reformatting text to match what's already there, every time I bring in new content. (I saw the help doc about pasting text into a text editor first to strip complex formatting; this doesn't help. It still gets pasted in a color, font, size, etc. that's different from what's already there.)

 

This would make Constant Contact so much easier to use. Thanks.

Top Answer
Kyle_R
Employee

Some good points & info already shared in this thread. As other's have mentioned, this idea has been open for several years and we've gone through a few editor updates/versions in that time. I just wanted to post a comment that summarizes some of the issue right now:

 

Standard Ctrl + V copy/paste will paste the content with the formatting from the original source.

 

If you paste with Ctrl + Shift + V (Option + Cmd + Shift + V in Mac) the content will be pasted without formatting. When this happens the destination formatting applied should be whatever defaults are set on the Design tab in the editor. 

 

The template defaults can be overridden at the block level. I imagine knowing to use Ctrl + Shift + V will solve the issue for some. For others, I'm guessing "destination formatting" is considered the formatting at the block level and not the template default, which also makes sense. Feel free to clarify to make sure we're capturing the feedback more accurately. The ability to paste without formatting was feedback that was considered and planned for with this current editor, but it seems like the thought was to apply the global styles.


30 Comments
Frankie_P
Employee

Hi everyone, we are updating the status of this request to Acknowledged to support our new community idea statuses and add better insight into your feedback. Because this is not an experience that all users have it does have to be troubleshooted on a case by case basis. This can cause us to note have guaranteed time estimate on when this defect will be resolved. We do however want to indicate some awareness that we have heard your feedback and it could be taken under consideration for a future release. In fact we will reach back out to this thread with any further updates.

 

In the meantime, for any user still have this experience we ask that you please email us at social_support(at)constantcontact(dot)com with the following details: your username, a reference to this post, a copy of the document if copying from a program such as word or the the URL that the text is being copied from if it is being pulled from a website.

Frankie_P
Employee
Status changed to: Acknowledged
 
rcppubs23
Marketing Legend

As far as I have been able to tell there have been no updates. This has been discussed since 2017, through at least 3 editor versions and now we are on yet another one.

 

But since the Constant Contact people responding on the thread have either not understood what we are talking about OR are on autopilot to say "put it in a text editor first" (which does not work), the value of an update is likely zero.

MaryJoC83
Marketing Legend

I have noticed the same issue. Luckily, our emails are short and sweet, so not a lot of effort going into reformatting the text - but that doesn't mean that CC shouldn't have that functionality. It's very annoying!

Kyle_R
Employee

Some good points & info already shared in this thread. As other's have mentioned, this idea has been open for several years and we've gone through a few editor updates/versions in that time. I just wanted to post a comment that summarizes some of the issue right now:

 

Standard Ctrl + V copy/paste will paste the content with the formatting from the original source.

 

If you paste with Ctrl + Shift + V (Option + Cmd + Shift + V in Mac) the content will be pasted without formatting. When this happens the destination formatting applied should be whatever defaults are set on the Design tab in the editor. 

 

The template defaults can be overridden at the block level. I imagine knowing to use Ctrl + Shift + V will solve the issue for some. For others, I'm guessing "destination formatting" is considered the formatting at the block level and not the template default, which also makes sense. Feel free to clarify to make sure we're capturing the feedback more accurately. The ability to paste without formatting was feedback that was considered and planned for with this current editor, but it seems like the thought was to apply the global styles.

afeito
Campaign Contributor

Came here to see if this was an issue with CC or me. Looks like a little bit of both.

 

For those who are interested, the work around is to:

  1. Use the design tab and go to "Fonts" to set the styles for your H1, H2, H3, and P tags.
  2. Make sure all your text is labeled in each block with these tags.
  3. Now, when you paste outside text into the block, your text should take on the destination style of the tagged content.

The trouble is, we need more options (Full H1-H6, and multiple P styles like display P, body P, bold P, or similar), and we need them to link up with the names in the "Design" tab. How do I know that a Heading is H1 or a Feature Heading is H2, etc.? The labeling needs to be changed or amended in the text editor and/or the Design tab to be consistent with one another. For example, you could simply write "Header (H1)" in the design tab, and people would understand the correlation between the text editor and the design tab.

 

Hopefully this helps others having this issue. And I hope CC can make these very small changes to make the interface more user friendly.

rcppubs23
Marketing Legend

idk if this works in the new cross platform editor because I'm not using it until they fix the Firefox problem. But it doesn't work in the 3rd gen editor, or the previous one which I forget the name of--that is why I've been watching this thread since 2017. I hope Constant Contact developers are reading it finally.

YuliaD
Rookie

I have the same problem - cannot change text font in CC email. At the moment I am formatting the text in word document and pasting it into CC email (I need to use a smaller font though - for example Arial 9 in word document, but it shows as size 12 in CC email). 

MarjorieK2
Rookie

I've got the same problem. I tried the "paste and match formatting" on a Mac and it doesn't work. Constant Contact tech support was not helpful. 

user1814
Rookie

Looking to see if there is a solution to this problem but apparently not. Constant Contact really needs to create a better system for managing fonts & styles in the editor. Every time I copy-paste text from elsewhere I have re-format it to match what is there. I use several fonts and sizes in my emails. There should be a way to paste that simply matches the existing font, size, colour, etc, rather than it just going to default each time. In the "design" tab I only see one font setting. This is extremely limiting. 

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