Pasting In Text Field Generates Odd Characters

[bmarineau]

We have run across a problem when pasting text into a text box on an entry or edit datapage.  If you paste text that has an apostrophe (or bullet points as well) Caspio turns the punctuation mark into a black diamond with a question mark in the middle.  The next time you pull up the record, all the black diamonds will be replaced with the text string "�".

 

If you enter an apostrophe from the keyboard directly into the text box, it stays as it should.  I mostly see this behavior when pasting from MS Word.  Although it happens when pasting from a website at times.

 

I guess I have 2 questions.  First, is it possible to keep formatting in a text field?  Or second, is it possible to paste the information just as text?

[Jan]

Hello Bill,

Can I ask, which language do you use?

You can keep formatting, if you use HTML-tegs for formatting and then display the text as HTML.

[bmarineau]

Hi Jan,

 

We use English (US-English to be specific).  Unfortunately, the only way that it appears I can use HTML formatting is to set the field as display only.  It is currently a Text Area.  The problem is it needs to be a field they can edit.

[Jan]

Hi Bill,

Do you use the type text64000 for this field? The type text64000 "remembers" and displays paragraphs.

[bmarineau]

Hi Jan,

 

Yes, the fields are Text64000.  For the most part they do seem to "remember" things.  It seems to eliminate blank lines on occasion, which may be related to the pasting issue.  If I type an apostrophe it will remain.  However if I paste text containing an apostrophe (or certain other punctuation marks) it's converted into the iterations I explained above.

 

Thanks.

[egilley]

I never found an "easy" solution to this, but I found a way to work with it.

 

I added a link to the datapages where the test64000 fields are (made the hyperlink to target _blank so that a new page would open and therefore not interrupt the data entry).  The link opens this page:

 

http://www.cflparents.org/database2/textconverter.htm

 

The person in our organization who does that particular data entry is VERY happy with the converter!  She used to go back and manually fix all the diamond-question-marks and now she doesn't have to do that anymore. BTW, I got the code from the web from someone who said, "Feel free to copy the code," so . . .  feel free to copy the code.