New text editor - love it or hate it?

Sondra Berry

Does anyone else dislike the new text editor as much as I do? I can't position pictures the way I used to do it and have to enter HTML code to make it happen. If I have a table, the table editor tool appears over the top line or two of the table making it impossible to edit the text in that region. Again, I have to go into the HTML code to make corrections. It took me twice as long to create a pushpage yesterday than it normally does. Perhaps it is only step one in a larger plan, but so far, it is less than what we had before. The only "gain" is that it seems to have updated icons for functions it already had. Can we go back to the old version? Please?

Liz King

It's causing a lot of confusion for our users. I haven't seen any advantages to it yet, sadly.

Julie Horvath

In Pushpage, the styles are now different. 

I have Templates set where I have defined styles per Option area (News, Content), but now in the dropdown to select a formatted style, they are replaced by different options than set in my styles. 

That is confusing.

Sarah Koziarski

I haven't noticed much of a different in functionality, just where the buttons are features are located. I'm hopeful that this is a set-up for a larger upgrade that will give us increased functionality.

Megan Morris

The new text editor has been problematic for us. My admin assistants use Pushpage to support our divisions and almost always are pasting in from Google Docs. The new editor picks up all formatting from GDocs and doesn't allow us to just copy and paste with the Pushpage formatting. This was easy to do with the previoustext editor. I am having to MANUALLY GO INTO THE CODE!!! everytime to fix formatting issues. It is a real headache. Unfortunately it doesn't work for us to paste as plain text because usually the text is formatted with all kinds of links, which our Pushpage managers would have to manually entered. Blackbaud, please fix this! 

MJ Galat

In copying text out of Google Docs for a pushpage, I always paste it in Word first.  I then recopy it and the format is corrected for the pushpage.

But, I agree, it has totally thrown the style sheet out the door which is very frustrating where we are trying to keep everything consistent across School Levels.

Suzan Moffett

The cleanest way to bring in text that does not carry a lot of unwanted formatting codes in the HTML is to run it through a plain text editor first. I use TextPad on a mac. 


You do need to re-format all bold, bullets, links etc in the Push Page editor with this method which can be a pain, but it keeps the HTML clean if you need to go in there to customize something and gives the best results for the broad spectrum of email readers. I do this with all email content, whether I bring over from google or word, and it's just become a routine part of the process -- and worth it to me not to have to worry about troubleshooting hidden formatting code or worry about how it's appearing on an email reader that I don't use.

Oona McKnight

I have experienced issues with the new text editor in other places besides the Pushpage as well.

I have always had problems with the hidden formatting, in report card comments from teachers, but with the new editor it also doesn't recognize carriage returns unless the teacher remembers to "Paste as plain text." I have them write their comments in Google Docs first (through Classroom) for editing, and I go in and remove all formatting, but this issue remains. There are also a few people whose text appears larger in the printed report card (but you can't tell in the editor; you have to run the report cards).

Also, in Assignments, with the new text editor there is no option for inserting an image (I see this text editor I am using for this comment has that option!). I have a teacher who pasted images in previously, and even when she imports an assignment from last year, the image does not appear. I had to show her how to get the HTML code from last year's assignment and paste it into the HTML on this year's assignment to get the same image to appear.

It's also annoying that I have to click the 3 dots to get commonly used things to appear in the menu (like inserting a link).

I haven't seen any improvements with this editor, only those few new problems.

Karm K

I have experienced the same issues, including strange spacing issues. I'm am not sure why the change was made as it doesn't seem like an upgrade? The only difference I've noticed is the ability to create tables. The two issues that bug me that most are:

• The editor tool (options) covers text you are trying to edit - I am surprised this hasn't been fixed yet? I am finding that I am going to the code way more often to make edits because of this.
• Having the click the 3 dots to get more options. Inserting a link is very common and you shouldn't have click another button to access this.

Roxanne Holmes

Has anyone else noticed this week that suddenly the formatting no longer carries over from Google docs? Just when I had gotten used to having to format everything in Google Docs before bringing it over, now everything is gone.

Ben Leddy

Ben from Blackbaud here -- thanks for bringing this up, and we're looking into it. Roxanne Holmes‍ , could you share what sort of content you are copying and where you are trying to paste it?

Roxanne Holmes

Hi Ben,

Thanks for reaching out. I typically copy content from a
Google Doc and paste it within a pushpage.

When I first began using Blackbaud in July of 2019, the
formatting would not stay with the text when I would paste it into
a pushpage, but then I noticed it had changed in the fall of 2020.
I was suddenly able to copy and paste, and the formatting would
stay, but the pushpage preset formats no longer would
apply.

Two weeks ago, it reverted to changing my content to plain
text, so I once again need to go in and bold or underline
items.

Roxanne Holmes

Communications Specialist

Francis Parker School

phone: 858 / 569-7900 ext. 4424

francisparker.org

as far as the mind can see

Francis Parker School | San Diego,
CA
www.francisparker.org | @francisparkersc | facebook.com/francisparkerschool


As Far As The Mind Can See

Ben Leddy

Thanks Roxanne Holmes‍ -- we did a recent update in our text editor, and we'll take a look at this. In the meantime, you can successfully and copy and paste from Microsoft Word and keep the formatting (e.g. you can copy from Google Docs into a word, and then copy that into Blackbaud successfully). Hope that workaround helps while we get this looked into!

Roxanne Holmes

Thank you for looking into the issue further.
Unfortunately, we use Google Docs exclusively for our content
drafts so bringing it over to Microsoft Word would be the same
amount of work as manually adjusting the formatting.

Roxanne Holmes

Communications Specialist

Francis Parker School

phone: 858 / 569-7900 ext. 4424

francisparker.org

as far as the mind can see

Francis Parker School | San Diego,
CA
www.francisparker.org | @francisparkersc | facebook.com/francisparkerschool


As Far As The Mind Can See

Ben Leddy

Hi Roxanne,


Just looping back on this that we're connecting the text editor provider to see what we can do, as pasting Google Docs content and preserving formatting doesn't seem to be supported at this time. We're opening a ticket to see whether this can be addressed. In the meantime, if it minimizes time and process, I did verify that copying Google Doc content, briefly pasting in a Word doc (even a new, unsaved one), and then copying that content from Word, preserves formatting when pasted in Blackbaud. I understand this is not ideal, but my hope is this that is could provide a more efficient solution then manually adjusting formatting.


I'll keep you posted on this, and thanks folks for the overall feedback on the text editor.


Ben

Roxanne Holmes

Thanks for the update, Ben. Yes, please keep me
posted as adding in the step to paste into Word isn't ideal.

Roxanne Holmes

Communications Specialist

Francis Parker School

phone: 858 / 569-7900 ext. 4424

francisparker.org

as far as the mind can see

Francis Parker School | San Diego,
CA
www.francisparker.org | @francisparkersc | facebook.com/francisparkerschool


As Far As The Mind Can See