Notebooks for iPhone Answers

Suzana

Why can't formatting appear "as is"?

Suzana, December 17, 2011 20:54

I like the way my notes look on the grip paper and then the output is different. If I want to add underlining its like word star from the 1980's. The output is on a yellow sheet wit tiny writing and the formatting is not as I put it in. This is really archaic. I like the program a lot but to create documents I will have to go elsewhere. Why not make the output appear as it is. I love the font and the grid paper background then you take it away for the output. This program is not what it appears to be.

Thumb_logo%20for%20helpify Staff

Alfons Schmid, December 19, 2011 08:58

Hi Suzana,

when developing apps for the iOS, we need to adhere to certain rules and we are restricted by the capabilities of the devices. One limitation that comes from that is that is has always been very hard (impossible, actually) to support WYSIWYG editing. You may have realized that before iOS5 you could not even use bold or italic in Mail on your iPhone or iPad, and Mail is an app made by Apple...

So basically, we have all been limited to plain text. To still allow some sort for formatting, we have introduced support for "Markdown" (this is the official name for the word star like formatting), but nothing comes for free. One of the consequences of using formatted text is that we no longer have even line spacing, and displaying that on a grid or ruled paper is not acceptable from an aesthetic point of view. This is why we decided to show formatted documents on a plain background. If you don't like the default color you are free to change it throughout the document's info.

Things will improve with Notebooks 5.0 ;-)

Best,
Alfons





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