Removing HTML From Exports

Overview

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When exporting from ZenGRC to CSV, customers can choose to remove Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) tags from rich-text fields.

What are Rich-Text Fields?

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Many applications, including ZenGRC, provide tools with which to format text. This is typically in large text boxes where words can be edited to display as bold, italic, or underlined. It also allows the user to change fonts, font sizes, and font colors.

Examples

The following are examples of rich-text fields:

• Formatted description while editing.

  
  
  

• Description in the application when looking at the same information in a list view.
  
  

HTML is used to alter text edited in rich-text fields. When something is selected to be bold or italic, HTML characters are used behind the scenes to make those changes. However, when rich text is placed into a plain text format, which is what occurs when information is exported from an application, the HTML formatting also displays. 

Example

The following provides an example of HTML tags in Google Sheets that display upon export:

How to Export Plain Text

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If your organization needs to analyze data and would like to remove HTML characters, there is an option to export data without HTML. However, the main use-case for this functionality is to export data for reporting purposes. If the same file is used to re-import data, all formatting would be lost and most text would read with no breaks.

The option to remove HTML formatting is available in the dialog box after selecting Download Export on the Data Export page and on any module with a list view. For more information, please see Data Export and System of Record List Views.