Often times, communications and messages are provided to your team from another source. When copying and pasting text, tables, or lists from any app into another, there will always be small differences between them. When pasting into the Content and Blast Editor there are a few things to keep in mind for a smooth experience.
Understanding The Issue
Copying and Pasting across different Text Editors will rarely match perfectly - this is because every text editor is unique, created for different standards and offering different features and benefits.
Our editor aims to match closely with as few assumptions as possible to be able to turn copied text into something that can be sent in email.
Because apps like Microsoft Word and Apple Pages are designed for print, PDFs for restricted documents, and Google Docs for web viewing, copying from or between these can sometimes lead to a number of different inconsistencies.
As Microsoft Word is one of the oldest and most used Text Editor, it's important to know its focus on print vs web and it incredible backward compatibility with documents spanning back decades. As a result, when text is copied into our text editor, formatting that was present in the source may not appear in a web browser, but may in Outlook Classic, because Outlook Classic uses Microsoft Word to render email.
For this reason, please make sure to use the Send Sample button to an Outlook Classic user before finalizing your sends.
Paragraph vs Text Formatting
When working with a web based text editor like ours, it may help to understand how formatting is applied.
All text is contained within paragraphs, and text within that paragraph has a "parent" style attached - by default, this uses the 'Paragraph' Type Scale, however, when pasting, the text within the paragraph may also carry with it its own formatting.
Even the space between paragraphs may be seen as a paragraph of its own, depending on the source text editor.
After pasting in several paragraphs, It can help to CTRL + A to select all text within the editor, then click 'Clear Formatting' and then re-apply the Paragraph type scale style. While some formatting may need to be reapplied, this often helps strip unexpected formatting, including accidental header tags which may have attached in the source.
Why Am I Seeing A Pop-Up Message When Pasting?
When pasting from Microsoft Word or Microsoft Office applications, you may see this message to let you know that formatting from the application is not always going to carry over. Here, you're given two options regarding your formatting: Clean and Keep.
Clean
When you select Clean, we'll remove the source application's formatting. The pasted content will have your organization's default font settings applied.
Keep
When you select Keep, we'll try our best to maintain your formatting or get to the closest version. This option will carry the most errors, but it can be worth trying first if you really love the formatting options you already may have applied.
Please note: In rare cases when using content from another source, even when you select Clean, it may sometimes be that formatting from the application has attached itself and may appear when opening the email in Outlook for Windows. Please make sure to send a sample when using copied content, just to make sure.
Recommendations
There are a few suggestions we recommend:
When possible, write text in the Text editor.
Configure and use Type Scales - Type Scales are preset font style, size, and line spacing settings which can be pre-set in your Blast and Content Controls page.
Paste Without Formatting and apply the formatting within our editor.
To Paste clean: right click in the Text Editor, then select “Paste without formatting” or "Paste and Match Style". This will remove all formatting of the text you’re copying. You will have to reformat the text in the Blast Editor, but there won’t be anything different or broken.Use the Clear Formatting option in our Text Editor after pasting - This tool will set the text to use the applied Type Scale.
Paste content from Microsoft Office Applications into a simple Text Editor like Notepad or WordPad on Windows, or TextEdit on macOS (Pasting Without Formatting typically offers a better experience).
Always make sure to send a sample to yourself for review when using copied content, just to make sure.
If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at support@cerkl.com or use the support Chat toward the bottom right-hand corner of any cerkl.com page.