Preserved Formating when Pasting into Notes from MS Word

Mike Binks said:

There may well be a way to help you deal with your problem and it might be time effective to give them a call.

Thank you for the suggestion. I may try and call them, but the time difference from here in the Philippines makes calling a little difficult to work out. I did email them in the meantime, and they gave me a very coy answer that basically seems to tell me that they changed things, and they don't care to go back to what it was before.

Here is the email:

"Hello Michael,

                Thank you for the email. Notes was never meant to be a replacement to one’s word processor, and I think you’ll find that copying and pasting from one word processor to another creates small variants in how the formatting is translated. The largest differences between the formatting in Word and the Notes tool is indentation. Assuming that is what you are referring to I would encourage you to suggest more true duplication of formatting between the source of the copied text and the Note over at UserVoice, and then encourage others to vote for your ideas in the forums here https://community.logos.com/forums/147.aspx. "

Sometimes I wonder whether these tech people even use Logos... I wouldn't call it a small variation, and I shouldn't have to make a suggestion over something that was previously standard. that tells me that they changed it, they don't care, and they are not going back unless they have significant outcry. That is just... lame.

William McFarland said:

I"m not sure why, my formatting remained the same  (I did change the bullets to numbers / letters in OneNote). I did another test and it did lose the font size change and highlighting but kept the font color change.

It seems to me that when creating a numbering in OneNote that the formatting is preserved in Logos. The same does not apply when going from Word itself. 

I do wonder why it had to be a complete redesign... especially when it was simply billed as an improved version. It is not an improved version, it is a different note system altogether. the way the editor worked in the old one was just fine... or at least I had not seen many complaints, and I did not have any myself (nothing of significant consequence, that is).

MJ. Smith said:

Because the old storage method limited the possibilities for adding the newer design interfaces that the users kept asking for.

I should have said it differently. what I am trying to get at is that they could have done all those background changes in the new system, and recreated a word processor in the new system that mimicked the word processor input of the old system. Does the content of a note affect the way that it is stored and retrieved?

MJ. Smith said:

You need to go further back in the forums, before we were given a solid "it ain't gonna happen" - many users simply kept their notes outside of Logos.

thank you, I stand corrected . this reality actually makes my case stronger. Many users, myself included, created and kept our notes outside of Logos because of the limited functionality of Logos Notes. Moreover, Logos admits that their Notes (including the most current one) is not a replacement for a stand alone word processor (see my note above for the contents of an email that was sent to me by Logos Tech). Are we now really suppose to think that we should be forced to eather abandon the use of our outside notes in Logos, or painstakingly redo them all (in the admittedly subpar Logos Notes word processor) just to access the functionality (Insanely good search functionality, I would add) of Logos' new Notes storage and search functions? They didn't force us to redo our external notes to bring them in under L7, why should we be forced to do that in L8 when the Notes word processor is still admittedly subpar? This seems like an oversight for them, and one they are ignoring. It is hard for me to believe that no one else copy and pasted notes into logos from external personal documents.

The reason I didn't use Logos Notes previously to create more detailed documents is because it is so subpar with regards to the word processor options, both the previous note system and the L8 note system were this way. I used eternal processors for my personal notes and imported the documents into PBs primarily because you couldn't create hyperlinks to other logos resources in the text of notes created in Logos; thankfully, this is something that can be done in L8 - one of many bright spots. So, I can create some note easier in Logos, but what of all my old notes? What of more complex notes? L7 accepted them with minimal changes. I like to create headings in MS Word because I can practically make my own resources through the PBs, something I couldn't do if I created them first in Notes. But if I continue to create them externally, then I will loose the functionality of the new notes, whereas if I create them in the new Notes, I lose the functionality of having them as a PB (Personal Notes as PBs are much better to preach and teach from since I can't accidently edit them when I am teaching - primarily using my computer in tablet mode).

I know they can't cater to the needs of ever user, but accepting the formatting of notes copied into notes does not seem like such a big deal, especially since they had it with the L7 system, and they already do that with their PB creator. I know, I am not a programmer, so if there is some deep programming issue that I couldn't even fathom than I stand ready to be corrected. 

MJ. Smith said:

I would consider this a crimson herring .

Not a crimson herring , just ignorance .

MJ. Smith said:

The PB goes through a process that is built for publisher efiles of books - designed primarily to add the tagging necessary for the resource to work within Logos.

At least I know that I don't have to worry about loosing my beloved PBs...

MJ. Smith said:

My biggest personal gripe is tables

Tables would be nice, and I have been bothered in the past when I couldn't copy and paste those into a note. Though, at least we have PBs to bring tables in.

MJ. Smith said:

However, I lost a great deal of timeline data between L3 and L4. I learned my lesson and purchased a stand alone time line maker. Between L7 and L8, I lost the meager support FL provided for lectionaries ... and made sure FL knew I felt betrayed. Everyone has to find for themselves the right balance between adjusting their needs to fit into what FL provides AND supplementing FL with other tools that meet their needs more closely.

I had Libronix (or whatever the name was back then), but at the time I had a different Bible program. L4 brought me in, and this has been the biggest change since then (though I have read some things alluding to the big change from L3 to L4), at least in my perspective. I bought L4, L6, L7 and now L8. in that time I have become really dependent upon the usability of the Notes and PBs that has been there for my specific needs since L4.5 (I think). I really wish they would allow PBs to be access from the Mobile software. maybe that is what I should be pushing for instead. Then I wouldn't need my notes to transfer. But it seems like that would never happen.

Mike Binks said:

Secondly Microsoft Office offerings are no longer the gold standard programs out there, the users of Pages, Open Office, Libra Office and a host of others would be queueing up to claim the same attention from the programmers.

Meeting your aspirations might well detract from other users by both favouring one brand and by using programmers time for a select (and I would hazard a small) group of users who want to import into notes from external sources.

since it is true that there are many different word processors, I decided to do a test and see how well the other programs worked with L7 and also with L8 in format retention. I wrote up a small document from scratch in 5 separate word processors: Google Docs, Open Office, WordPerfect X9, Microsoft Word and LibreOffice. Being on Windows, I have no way to access Pages (if someone would like to test that program that would be good). The formatting of nearly all (Google Docs formatting retained some formatting) word processors was lost upon copying and pasting into L8. No surprise there. L7, however, retained the majority of formatting for OpenOffice (current edition), WordPerfect X9, Microsoft Word (2016) and LibreOffice (current edition). All formatting was lost for Google Docs when copying into L7. 

In summary, L7 preserved the formatting for the major word processors (again, I could not test Pages), and L8 lost the majority of formatting for everything except Google Docs. 

Categories tested included:

• Size
• Bold
• Automatic Numbered/Lettered lists
• Color (only Green and Red were used for the tests)
• Left text alignment
• Center text alignment
• Justified text alignment
• Indentation outside of automatic lists

These are the results of the tests:

Google Docs:

L7:

• L7 retains indentation outside of numbered lists
• L7 loses everything else

L8: (Better format retention)

• L8 retains numbered/lettered automatic lists
• L8 retains bold
• L8 retains justified text alignment
• L8 retains center text alignment
• L8 retains indentation outside of automatic numbered/lettered lists
• L8 loses color
• L8 loses size

Open Office:

L7: (Better format retention)

• L7 retains size
• L7 retains bold
• L7 retains numbered lists (indentation in lists is a little off and lettering is changed to numbers)
• L7 retains color
• L7 retains center text alignment
• L7 retains indentation outside of a list (with formatting difficulties)
• L7 loses justified text alignment

L8:

• L8 retains bold
• L8 retains numbered/lettered lists with formatting difficulties
• L8 retains certain indentations (loses others)
• L8 loses size
• L8 loses color
• L8 loses center text alignment
• L8 loses justified text alignment
• L8 loses multiple indentation outside of a list

Word Perfect:

• L7 retains size
• L7 retains bold
• L7 retains numbered lists (indentation in lists is a little off and lettering is changed to numbers)
• L7 retains color
• L7 retains center text alignment
• L7 retains some indentation (there is also indentation where not specified)
• L7 loses justified text alignment

L8:

• L8 retains numbered/lettered indentation (with formatting issues)
• L8 retains indentation outside of lists (with small formatting differences)
• L8 loses size
• L8 loses bold
• L8 loses color
• L8 loses center text alignment
• L8 loses justified text alignment

Microsoft Word:

L7: (Better format retention)

• L7 retains size
• L7 retains bold
• L7 retains numbered lists (lettering is changed to numbers)
• L7 retains color
• L7 retains center text alignment
• L7 retains regular indentation outside of automatic lists (with minor formatting issues)
• L7 loses justified text alignment

 L8:

• L8 retains bold
• L8 retains proper lettering/numbering in automatic lists
• L8 retains indentation outside of automatic lists (retains better than L7)
• L8 retains center text alignment
• L8 retains justified text alignment
• L8 retains some color (green is retained – red is not)
• L8 loses size
• L8 loses indentation of automatic numbered/lettered lists

LibreOffice:

 L7: (Better format retention)

• L7 retains size
• L7 retains bold
• L7 retains numbered lists (very well)
• L7 retains color
• L7 retains center text alignment
• L7 loses regular indentation outside of automatic lists
• L7 loses justified text alignment

L8:

• L8 retains bold
• L8 retains numbered lists (with some formatting difficulties)
• L8 retains center text alignment
• L8 retains justified text alignment
• L8 loses size
• L8 loses color
• L8 loses regular indentation outside of automatic lists