Edit Multiple Fields in Multiple cards at once

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6

Sorry, I understood that you had already recognized the scope of the issue, but if you’re only looking at the surface text, you might not have seen that yet. :sweat_smile:

Everything you see in Anki is written and formatted with HTML tags (and CSS. If you open the HTML view of a field – by clicking <> above the field – you can display that.

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Once you figure out what HTML tags are being used, you can use Find and Replace to delete them from all of your notes at once. This is essentially what the “format eraser” is doing for you – removing a set list of HTML tags.
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This comes with certain challenges –

  1. There are often multiple ways to apply the same formatting in HTML. You can see in this example that superscript-gray text is applied for one part with <sup><span style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">... and for another part with <font color="#808080"><sup>.... So it can take multiple tries to clear the formatting from everything.
  2. It’s a blunt instrument, and will remove formatting even from text that you want to remain formatted. [Although Find and Replace can be limited to certain notes and certain fields.]
  3. If you’re not familiar with HTML, there can be a bit of a learning curve to recognizing what you’re looking for. Sites like W3Schools are great for learning the basics.
  4. HTML tags come in pairs, so you also need to find the end tags and delete those. [Although in a pinch you can sloppily “gut” the tags instead, like by removing the attribute and leaving a tag in place that doesn’t do anything anymore.]

Now that I’ve set you up for how scary this can be… You’re only talking about one specific format – text highlighting/background – so that increases the likelihood that you’ll be able to do this efficiently! :+1:t4:

As a first step, open up the HTML view and see if the tags are at least consistent from note to note and field to field. Consider whether you have a lot of other formatting that you’ll need to make sure you’re protecting.

If you want to post a sample of what you’re seeing, so that folks can help you come up with find/replace queries that might work, please post it as text in a code block (like you did above).

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