Crafting your form or email content directly in the Visual Editor is the best way to ensure that it looks exactly the way you want. Of course, you or your designer may provide content in an external word processor such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. It is still considered a best practice, however, to design how the content looks in our text editor instead of relying on the external rich text editor's design capabilities. Below are considerations for adding content from an external text editor.

Pasting from Microsoft Word or Google Docs

Rather than bringing over font, line height, or some other formatting that will conflict with the Visual Editor text formatting, we remove those elements when you paste content. Some formatting will come over (outlined below), and that formatting will be easily adjustable by our text editor component.

To paste copied content into a text element in Engage, press CTRL+V on your keyboard when using Windows or ⌘+V (Command-V) on your keyboard when using a Mac. Also, you can right-click and use the browser's options to paste your content into the Text element.

When pasting from Microsoft Word or Google Docs, the text editor will retain the following.

Formatting	Pasted from Microsoft Word	Pasted from Google Docs
Background Color
Text decoration, such as strikethrough or underline
Font weight, such as bold
Font style, such as italics
Text justification (left, right, center)
Text vertical alignment (subscript, superscript)
Heading styles, like Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.
Tables

Images

When inserting an image into a Text-element, use the image icon to first upload your image to Salsa. Then select the image to insert it. This ensures that the image is hosted and served by Salsa.

Paste as Plain Text

To paste content as Plain Text from Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any other Rich Text Editor, press CTRL+SHIFT+V on your Windows keyboard or ⌘+SHIFT+V (Command-SHIFT-V) on your Mac keyboard. Pasting in this way strips out styling, special formatting, links, and other special characters--leaving only the text.

As another option, you can use Notepad, TextEdit, Word to Clean HTML, or EditPad as an intermediary to guarantee you have no formatting in your content.

1. Open Notepad, TextEdit, EditPad, or the plain text editor of your choice.
2. Open the Salsa Engage Activity or Email into which you want to paste content.
3. Open the content that you want to copy in your rich text editor (for example, Microsoft Word).
4. Copy the content that you want to use.
5. Switch to the plain text editor and paste in your content. Sometimes you can paste without formatting, depending on the tool. Check the edit menu in your software.
6. Run the process in that plain text editor to strip hidden formatting, if necessary.
7. Copy the text from the plain text editor.
8. Click to the Salsa Engage Activity or Email, and paste in the content.

Remove Format Button

The Remove Format button will remove any and all remaining formatting within the text content, leaving just the words. The button icon looks like a Tx. To remove all formatting from your content...

1. Highlight the content you wish to strip of formatting.
2. Press the Remove Format (Tx) button.

The Remove Format button will not work to remove formatting if you highlight a Merge Field along with any content.

Undo/Redo Changes

Undo and Redo buttons in the text editor allow you to back-out or reinstitute changes made while editing the content. Hold your mouse over the button without clicking it to see a keyboard shortcut for that button. For example, on a Mac the keyboard shortcut for Undo is ⌘+Z. The keyboard shortcut for Redo is ⌘+Y.

The Undo/Redo buttons apply only to the text element you are currently editing. The text element must be already active and you must be editing within the text element. Once you click out of the Text element (and the editing options go away), the undo/redo history starts over. The buttons won't let you go further back or forward if you click back into the element.

Paragraph Breaks vs. Line Breaks

A paragraph break creates a space between one paragraph and another, a visual difference between one thought any another. A line break just stops the content on one line and starts again on the next line.

The ENTER key creates a new paragraph. The key combination SHIFT+ENTER creates a single-line break.

The distinction is important when it comes to supporters who rely on assistive technology such as screen readers. Paragraph breaks are different to these programs than line breaks. A screen reader may not interpret a line break as a pause and just continue with the next sentence.

Help Icon

The ? icon in the menu toggles the "Need Help" menu to the right on or off when clicked.