SM 16 WebMail not preserving table borders when pasting from spreadsheets like MS Excel

Problem reported by Ionel Aurelian Rau - 10/4/2017 at 2:56 AM

Resolved

Hello!

When a user pastes a table from a spreadsheet (tested with MS Excel 2016 and LibreOffice`s Calc) that has formatted borders, in SmarterMail 16 these borders are not formatted. In order to have at least some kind of border for the tables, after pasting them in WebMail, using the "Code View" feature we are changing the "table border="0"" value to "table border="1"". This way at least the table now has all the borders and it looks like a table, even if the border widths are not preserved as they are in Excel.

We are using Version: 16.3.6474

This has been like this since SM16 was released and it did not seem to be that big of a deal, but people are complaining more and more about it. Many of our users need to send excerpts of some tables in spreadsheets on a daily basis and the way SM 16`s webmail handles this has become an issue. We`ve been using MS Outlook 16 for most of these users so they would not have the issue, but more and more users need this and it`s not a solution just to buy Outlook for everyone, especially now that EAS support is also being removed.

Please fix this, or at least make it so that users do not have to edit the code for the borders of their tables to show (maybe implement a toggle in the editing interface that would stick forever so they would not have to change it each time). Ideally (and how we would see it working normally), would be for all of the border`s widths to be preserved as they are in the spreadsheet, but I would say that if at least 2 border width level would be available, that would be great (so at least the thin ones would be thin and the thick ones would be thick).

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Derek Curtis Replied

10/5/2017 at 7:41 AM

Employee Post

Ionel,

It's just the gridlines, right? I've added font colors and cell backgrounds using LibreOffice and those seem to paste in just fine. However, I do see what you mean about the gridlines not pasting in correctly.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

10/5/2017 at 11:41 PM

Yes, fonts and formatting for text inside the cells is preserved and so is cell backgrounds.

The problem is with the gridlines / borders. They are missing unless the "table border="0"" value is manually set to "table border="1"" using the "Code View" feature, but this simply turns on a single kind of border / gridline (but the original table might have thin borders, thick ones and dotted ones, as a general rule). Ideally, since the whole table with all of its colours and formatting is preserved, when pasting it, the borders would be preserved as well just as they are.

Alessandro Pereira Replied

1/17/2018 at 12:18 PM

Our clients also have the same problem, the v16 webmail editor does not work.
Can not enable gridline / border in tables through webmail editor

Hariharan Ponnuvel Replied

10/3/2018 at 12:11 AM

Still this issue found. Solution need for this issue. Thanks

Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

10/3/2018 at 12:32 AM

In a subsequent build SM web interface started preserving borders and the code did not need to be edited anymore. Then at least until build v16.3.6782 tables with borders and a minimum hint of formatting was being preserved when pasting from Excel a formatted table, but after v16.3.6782 we`re back to square one and tables do not even have any kind of borders when pasting them! Now the web interface is useless for most of the users since they send tables via email on a daily basis..

David Raney Replied

10/23/2018 at 1:21 PM

Same problem here and is forcing us to use another email program. When will this copy and paste from Excel to preserve formatting be corrected? Thanks, David

Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

10/24/2018 at 1:36 AM

You mean the latest SM build still does not preserve borders? We`re now still on v16.3.6782 and are holding up on upgrading due to this and other issues that occurred in subsequent builds. Can you confirm this is still occurring in v16.3.6870?

Employee Replied

10/24/2018 at 12:13 PM

Employee Post Marked As Resolution

Hi,

This should be fixed in SmarterMail 16.3.6870.

Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

11/14/2018 at 1:04 AM

Hi,

We updated to v16.3.6885 and table borders are NOT preserved. While some formatting is preserved, table borders are definitely not and is making life hard for our users. Moreover, it`s getting old having to instruct users to manually edit the code and change "border" from 0 to 1, especially since if you paste multiple tables in the mail, you have to do that for each one. I know it does not look like much to you, but it`s little things like these that annoy users and makes them ask "why can`t we have a real email solution"?

How hard can it be to simply just preserve the borders and be done with it? This has changed a few times in different versions, confusing everyone.. now you can paste with borders, now you have no borders..

If you cannot make a permanent feature from preserving table borders when they are pasted in webmail, how about implementing a big fat button / toggle in the editing interface asking users: "do you want table borders?" Then users should click on that / toggle it to yes and then the "border" tags in the code should be set to 1.

Thank you for understanding.

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