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Can I preserve formatting and line breaks when creating a Google Doc from an Airtable template?


epic-keys

When creating a google doc from template on airtable, how can I format the out put so it will print on multiple lines or maintain any of the formatting it has from airtable as a “long text” field?

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14 replies

Troy Tessalone
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Hi @epic-keys 

Good question.

To help give us more context, please outline a specific examples of the inputs and desired outputs using screenshots.


epic-keys
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 6 replies
  • July 10, 2023

@Troy Tessalone Thanks.

Here is an image of a google doc, generated from template. Both fields here come from the same airtable field - which is formatted to be long text in airtable. In one instance it prints without linebreak, in the other it prints with linebreak. I want to consistently output with the linebreaks.

 

The template is a google doc with a table to keep a pretty page; however, each of these cells are the same.

Here is a picture of the template:

 


Troy Tessalone
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@epic-keys 

Check the formatting of the fields in Airtable to make sure they are configured the same.

 

 


epic-keys
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 6 replies
  • July 10, 2023

Thanks, @Troy Tessalone. I can confirm that both values had the same formatting in Airtable.

they are both “long text” in Airtable.


Troy Tessalone
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@epic-keys 

Do both have Enable rich text formatting turned ON or OFF?

 

 


epic-keys
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 6 replies
  • July 10, 2023

Both had rich text formatting turned off.


Troy Tessalone
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@epic-keys 

Is the data formatted in the Long Text field the same way?

Might help to expanded the width/height of the row to see.

Or you can copy/paste out to another program to see.


epic-keys
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 6 replies
  • July 10, 2023

Thanks. 

The text seems to be formatted differently.

When expanding, I can see the line break in one.

But that is also strange, as both values were populated in the same zap step which copied the information from Hubspot to airtable.

Any reason why would it have formatted one with a linebreak?


Troy Tessalone
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@epic-keys

If data is being populated from a Zap, then I would check the formatting of that field in the Zap step being used.


epic-keys
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 6 replies
  • July 10, 2023

I’ve definately checked the formatting in the zap, and its consistent for both - It’s a single field leaving hubspot, no formatting applied in the zap, going to two airtable fields which had the same format.
With this specific case we can see the error - In one instance the line breaks are preserved and present in airtable, and subsequently present in google docs. In the other, it does not.

🤷


Troy Tessalone
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@epic-keys 

If the data is originating in HubSpot, then check the formatting in HubSpot.


epic-keys
  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 6 replies
  • July 10, 2023
screenshot of zapier test

The linebreak is present in hubspot. And it seems the text is the same as zapier passes the one field in hubspot to two fields in airtable. However, the formatting in airtable is inconsistent; despite the airtable fields being the same type with the same settings.


Troy Tessalone
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@epic-keys 

There are different types of line breaks.

Check to make sure both HubSpot fields are using the same type of line break.

[:newline:] - matches newline (\n) characters
[:return:] - matches carriage-return (\r) characters

SamB
Community Manager
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  • Community Manager
  • 7717 replies
  • July 25, 2023

Hi @epic-keys! 👋

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you here so I just wanted to check in to see how you’re getting on. If you still need any help on this please let us know! 🙂