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**lesliekirk** · 05-01-19, 10:02 AM

Originally posted by Leanne View Post

I am working with a site that needs to be able to modify product descriptions via an export file. Unfortunately, they have copied formatted text from Word and pasted it into the rich text editor, and now the source code of the descriptions is full of MS Office encoding and it is breaking the export file in a big way.

Are there any options for fixing this short of going in and recoding the messed up descriptions? The site has 2,300 products, and the export file is 19,000 lines long.

OMG - or for a site that uses Microsoft Expressions, then copy & pastes from <html> to </html> into the Product Description field.

**Bruce - PhosphorMedia** · 05-01-19, 12:00 PM

Here's a thought:

Create or use the existing Product List page.

In the product loop for that page, output product_code, product_name, and then

Code:

 
 <mvt:assign name="g.allowed_tags" value="''" /> <mvt:eval expr="miva_html_strip( l.settings:product:descrip, g.allowed_tags )" />

You should be able to use that output as product import file. You might use the "allowed" tags to preserve <p> or <h1>, but seeing how its MS:Office HTML, probably wont help much.

**Leanne** · 05-01-19, 12:06 PM

I was hoping you'd chime in, you always have good ideas. I may try that. Unfortunately, all of the product descriptions have <p> <b> and <ul> and<li> tags in them that will have to be put back in so I'm not sure how much time it would save.

**lesliekirk** · 05-01-19, 12:10 PM

Can the method be used to strip "stuff" out from inside a tag? MS Expressions attempts to build using classes inside things like the <p> <ul> and <li> tags.

**Bruce - PhosphorMedia** · 05-01-19, 12:42 PM

Originally posted by Leanne View Post

I was hoping you'd chime in, you always have good ideas. I may try that. Unfortunately, all of the product descriptions have <p> <b> and <ul> and<li> tags in them that will have to be put back in so I'm not sure how much time it would save.

Well, it should get rid of quite a bit of code bloat...you can add p, ul, li, etc to the allowed tags, then perhaps create your own 'parser' (to go with what Leslie was suggesting) to remove all 'style' attributes.

It might be tricky...but it's doable. Or you could try running the results through something like this:

https://html-cleaner.com/features/re...inline-styles/

**Kent Multer** · 05-01-19, 01:47 PM

With 2300 descriptions to fix, even at just one minute per product, that's almost 40 hours of someone's time. It might be worthwhile to have a custom script written that can do them all with a few clicks. Depending on the specifics of what you need removed or replaced, it could be a huge time saver. If you're interested, you can drop me a line by email, and send me a sample of the text.

Thanks --

**Leanne** · 05-01-19, 09:08 PM

So Bruce's solution is very close to brilliant and allows me to keep the basic html*, but I've been beating my head against the wall trying to remove the line breaks from the descriptions so that with no success. I have searched all over trying to find a solution and nothing I have tried is working. I can't import the results into Excel with the existing line breaks. I'm sure it's something simple but I've been fighting with this site all day and my brain is dead. Any help is appreciated.

Kent, fortunately only later-added products are affected, and that 2300 number includes product variants and other inactive products so it's not quite at that scope, but you make an excellent point. I will definitely be in touch if needed.

*But I am now discovering that some of the crap code is making its way through. Urgh.

**lesliekirk** · 05-02-19, 03:34 AM

Is it showing up as:

Code:

\r\n

**lesliekirk** · 05-02-19, 03:46 AM

Originally posted by Leanne View Post

So Bruce's solution is very close to brilliant and allows me to keep the basic html*, but I've been beating my head against the wall trying to remove the line breaks from the descriptions so that with no success.

Which suggestion worked for you? https://html-cleaner.com/ or

Create or use the existing Product List page.

In the product loop for that page, output product_code, product_name, and then

Code:
<mvt:assign name="g.allowed_tags" value="''" /> <mvt:eval expr="miva_html_strip( l.settings:product:descrip, g.allowed_tags )" />

**lesliekirk** · 05-02-19, 05:31 AM

Originally posted by Kent Multer View Post

With 2300 descriptions to fix, even at just one minute per product, that's almost 40 hours of someone's time. It might be worthwhile to have a custom script written that can do them all with a few clicks. Depending on the specifics of what you need removed or replaced, it could be a huge time saver. If you're interested, you can drop me a line by email, and send me a sample of the text.

Thanks --

I'll drop you a line. My problem is there is no consistency to the usage of HTML in the product description. Some descriptions have a complete HTML page pasted in the field. Others start with just <style> ... </style> that was created by MS Expressions. Some of the HTML is as old as FrontPage. Then there is a ton of inline styling. I'll send you samples. - Leslie

**ids** · 05-02-19, 08:31 AM

I think I've run into this before. And ideally, I think the RTE wants UTF8 encoding.

So the export is breaking because of the line feeds? If that isn't it, I don't understand how the exported file is broken.

Assuming my "assumption" the copying from Word seems to be the problem. Isn't there a way in word save the file into another format, that also saves the content with UTF8 encoding? This is how I think the formatting will be preserved and entities like linefeeds won't be interpreted literally.

It's possible that the content from Word simply needs to be read into a different app like a spreadsheet that could interpret the formatting and encode it correctly in that app.

I can't be exact for the steps to take, I'm not a Word guru. But this seems like it will be worth a try before trying to code/script a band-aid on a gash that really needs stitches.

Scott

**William Davis** · 05-02-19, 08:34 AM

Once you find a solution, please post same here, I have a similar problem with over 10K products.

**Leanne** · 05-02-19, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by lesliekirk View Post

Which suggestion worked for you? https://html-cleaner.com/ or

It was the PLST page idea. There is still MS Office encoding coming through, but it's significantly cleaned up, and seems to follow a pattern that I could search and replace for if I could get the content nicely into a spreadsheet, but the line breaks are messing me up.

**Bruce - PhosphorMedia** · 05-02-19, 11:12 AM

The way i've solved line breaks in the past is pasting the offending column into a text editor and changing the character Encoding until they disappear (not very eloquent, but it works when you don't know what the line break encoding is.)

You could try using:

<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="glosub(l.settings:product:descrip, asciichar(10), '')" />
<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="glosub(g.thisDescription, asciichar(11), '')" />
<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="glosub(g.thisDescription, asciichar(12), '')" />
<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="glosub(g.thisDescription, asciichar(13), '')" />

<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="glosub(g.thisDescription, '\r', '')" />
<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="glosub(g.thisDescription, '\n', '')" />

&mvt:global:thisDescription;

<mvt:assign name="g.thisDescription" value="''" />

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