Tabs deleted in notes

dstillman

This discussion was created from comments split from: how to disable autoformatting of notes.

many55

I have the same problem. I can not understand that all structuring tabs in a text are simply deleted. What shoud that?

adamsmith

@many55 -- not sure what you're referring to (I do understand the OP's concern). What do you mean by "structuring tabs" and what gets deleted?

many55

@adamsmith Many thanks for your response. Leading tabs of a copied and pasted text are automatically deleted.


This is an example text:

  - item 1
  - item 2
  - item 3

And we have more information:

  We like text
   with preceeding tabulators
  like this one

For example

[
  {
   "title": "Big Blue",
   "author": "Little John",
   "url": "http://somewhere.aa/big"
  },
  {
   "title": "Small Blue",
   "author": "Big John",
   "url": "http://somewhere.aa/little"
  }
]


AND THIS IS THE POOR RESULT IN ZOTERO:

This is an example text:

- item 1

- item 2

- item 3

And we have more information:

We like text

with preceeding tabulators

like this one

For example

[

{

"title": "Big Blue",

"author": "Little John",

"url": "http://somewhere.aa/big"

},

{

"title": "Small Blue",

"author": "Big John",

"url": "http://somewhere.aa/little"

}

]

adamsmith

uhm, no? This is a note I just created (putting the JSON, appropriately, in a code block using ```)
https://imgur.com/a/bFpvn3i

How are you creating these tabs? Just standard tab key indenting works in notes.

many55

My texts have real tabs. However, they are only deleted after you have exited the note and reopened it.

adamsmith

That doesn't answer my question though: how and where are you creating these notes exactly. (Also check your Zotero version; I do think this wasn't available in early versions of the note editor)

many55

I have version 6.0.20 installed. For example, I created the source text with Notepad++. Everything looks fine right after pasting into the Zotero note, but after closing and reopening, the leading tabs are removed.

many55

The only way to preserve indentation when copying seems to be to first replace the tabs with spaces, for example one tab with four spaces. That's not really nice.

Incidentally, indentations created by Zotero are displayed as spaces when copied back, one tab becomes four spaces.

But the next question is why is Zotero generating such large spaces between lines?

Copying the Zotero text back into any text editor creates meaningless blank lines. It's not nice, this incompatibility.

adamsmith

I'm not seeing the tab behavior either copying from your original post or from VS Code, so that seems like it's particular to Notepad++ and what it does with tabs.

The spaces are an effect of treating CR as a paragraph break in the Zotero Note editor. You'll get the same when you just hit return after a typed line. I think you can modify that in the CSS for the notes. There are a couple of threads on this, though it's obviously advanced functionality.

many55

Dear Adam, first of all, thank you for your efforts. There are no tabs in my original post. Tabs cannot be entered here in this editor. If you copy my example, then you have spaces in the text.

This is also not a problem with Notepad++, the original Windows editor also delivers tabs to Zotero with copy/paste and they are eliminated.

A text created in Microsoft Word, however, behaves insanely. If you copy this text to Notepad++ or to the Windows editor, the tabs are retained. If you copy the text from Word directly to Zotero, each tab becomes 15 spaces under Zotero. If you continue copying the text from one of the editors, the real tabs arrive under Zotero. And true tabs are removed by Zotero after exiting and re-entering the note.

I think you have spaces, but you can easily check this by moving the cursor.

Tabs are lost.

enozkan

I can confirm that there is some odd behavior here: Copying from Word to the Zotero Note Editor converts tabs to spaces on a Mac, but they are conserved if copied to TextEdit. TextEdit (plain or rich text) to Zotero Note Editor does preserve the tab.