How Prevent Re-Formatting of Contact Notes Field When Syncing

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makinmyway

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Outlook version
Outlook 2013 64 bit
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POP3
My PST contacts are synced with my iPhone via iCloud and iTunes. However at some point (in the sending of data to or from the phone) the formatting (fonts and embedded links) are changed to Calibri and expanded in the case of the links (rather than with smaller display names for the hyperlinks). Why?

Basically these are the employment history portions of LinkedIn pages of the contacts I have cut and pasted into their Contact notes field but they are getting messed up in format in the syncing process. Can this be helped?
 
Got it. That makes sense (sadly) so thank you for explaining to me how this doesn't work. I appreciate your help and expert insight, Diane.
 
The bodies in outlook use RTF formatting, iCloud uses HTML and the conversion between the two always mucks them up. There is no solution at this time. Sorry.

Re this issue, I also read the thread entitled "Outlook Contacts 2010 problem with Notes section configuration." I’m syncing my notes (People >>> Notes) with Outlook 2016, outlook.com (Exchange Server), Android phone, and iPad. Specific to the hyperlink problems, are there any recent solutions?
 
There shouldn't be as many problems syncing now that outlook.com is on Exchange. OWA & iphone will display links in "name < url>" format but they should display as expected in outlook desktop.

(It looks like there is a bug - edits in OWA and iphone show up in the 'people card' view but not in an open contact form.)
 
After a bit more testing with web, ios native app - urls are fine if you don't edit anywhere but outlook. (I edited notes only - i'm assuming editing anything would affect it).
Links appear like this online and in apps; if you edit anywhere but the desktop, the links appear like this in outlook too. It's not unexpected because it is plain text format...

edited-contact.png


Text formatting will likely be lost too, because the device/owa is saving a plain text notes field - when i tried testing this (as an after thought to the hyperlink problem), i discovered sync issues. Changes made in desktop sync everywhere immediately, changes made elsewhere sync immediately to almost everywhere - the People Cards show the changes, in plain text format but the actual outlook contact isn't updated immediately.
 
Since I'm getting duplicates and triplicates of the <mailto:blahblah@blah.com>, I'm going to implement a workaround. In Outlook 2016 Desktop >>> in People >>> in the Notes Field >>> I'm going to (1) use full URLs, and (2) enter email addresses as non-hyperlinked bracketed by ' '. For example: 'diane.rockstar@slip.comrocks' This way, everything should appear correctly regardless of the platform I'm viewing it in (Outlook 2016 Desktop, outlook.com web based, Android phone, iPad).
 
Yes, don't use mailtos - each mailto splits into mailto<mailto>, and the <mailto> splits again, and again...

i'd also recommend not using pretty hyperlinks - might as well just enter them in 'Name: URL' - although name <url> format isn't ugly and shouldn't reproduce.
 
In People >>> in the Notes field >>> I now have my links and URLs to the point at which they are behaving (displaying properly; not reproducing). Thanks for your help in resolving this issue.

Now, on to the next issue. As a reminder, I'm syncing People via:
  • Outlook 2016 Desktop PC
  • outlook.live.com/owa
  • Android Phone
  • iPad
Somewhere in the sync process, the formatting in the Notes field is being changed. E.g., text that I input in Outlook 2016 Desktop PC (in People >>> Notes field) formatted as Normal... somehow, somewhere, during the sync process... is later reformatted to include text formatted as Heading 1 and numerous blank rows disappear (making some paragraphs abut the following paragraph, i.e., a blank row no longer exists between the two paragraphs).

So, I'm curious to learn... where in the sync process is this occurring?

How might I resolve this issue?
 
Are you using formatting at all? (Don't.) To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the devices, I think Android.

If it is easily reproducible (ie, it always happens when you add notes), turn off sync on one of the devices and see if the you can repro. If you use the native apps, it's easy to stop syncing items on the iphone without removing the account, so i'd test syncing only the android first. (It might be easy on the android too, but i haven't looked at an android in a while.)
 
Diane, you're right. In order for content in the People Notes Field to not be reformatted after the sync process has completed, all formatting must first be removed.

I chose to use Outlook 2016 Desktop PC to remove all of the formatting from my Notes content. Once I did this, and then allowed People to sync through my entire loop (Outlook 2016 Desktop PC, outlook.live.com/owa, Android Phone, iPad), the content in my Notes fields did not get reformatted.

However, so far, in Outlook 2016 Desktop PC I've seen two exceptions: (1) I can use a mix of font sizes, and (2) I can use Bold text. Neither one of these has resulted in the content being reformatted by the sync process. Although, you never know, in the coming days this may change. If anything changes, I'll report back here.
 
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