Switching to HTML rich texts
and the new rich text editor
From 2022 R4
Sage X3 now uses HTML for rich texts
Sage X3 now uses a new HTML rich text editor that can be enabled to use HTML for all rich texts in the
application.
Historically, Sage X3 has used RTF for rich texts embedded in the application. Rich texts are used mostly
for customer-facing texts attached to documents such as Sales Orders, Invoices, or labels, and also for
some internal documents.
RTF is a proprietary format initially promoted by Microsoft® to allow the exchange of rich text between
applications in the Office suite and other text-editing software. Although it still occasionally appears in the
Microsoft® context, it has been largely superseded by HTML5.
From 2022 R4, the Sage X3 rich texts can now use HTML. This avoids most of the issues that appear
when rich texts are translated back and forth from RTF to HTML to be displayed on screen. The HTML
scope used by X3 has been adapted to cover only features supported by Crystal Reports for all texts that
may appear in a report. This is to guarantee maximum similarity between the report (rendered using
Crystal Reports) and the text displayed on screen (rendered by your device’s browser).
Solving rich text editor issues with the new editor
The move to HTML solves all rich text editor issues that were related to the back-and-forth conversion
from RTF to HTML, mostly around the differences between rich text features as displayed on screen, and
as printed through Crystal Reports.
You can switch to HTML progressively and painlessly
From Sage X3 2022 R4, you can activate the flag Use HTML for rich texts in Administration > Global
Settings. This enables a new HTML rich text editor in all of Sage X3.
When this is done:
• Any rich text created or modified from that point on will be stored as HTML.
• Existing texts that have not been modified will still be stored as RTF.
This allows you to progressively move to HTML with no disruption to existing rich texts.