# HTML formatted text in Report

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/html-formatted-text-in-report/14762>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [July 11, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/html-formatted-text-in-report/14762 "2017-07-11T19:51:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![b\_zacht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@b\_zacht](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/b_zacht)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/html-formatted-text-in-report/14762/1 "2017-07-11T19:51:48Z")

</div>

For many Ignition components (Label, Button, Tab Strip, etc.) HTML tags can be used to format displayed text. Is this possible in a report? I tried with a text shape, but the preview shows the tags as plain text.

I am using Ignition 7.8.4.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KathyApplebaum](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kathyapplebaum/32/7261_2.png) [@KathyApplebaum](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/KathyApplebaum)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/html-formatted-text-in-report/14762/2 "2017-07-11T20:09:01Z")

</div>

No, it’s not possible. But you do have a lot of other formatting ability (fonts, colors, justification, etc) that aren’t available with Vision components, so you’ll probably be able to make something come out the way you want.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![b\_zacht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@b\_zacht](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/b_zacht)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2017, 8:20pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/html-formatted-text-in-report/14762/3 "2017-07-11T20:20:52Z")

</div>

Thanks for your reply. My intention was to recycle display strings from elsewhere in my project. I’ll look into the other formatting options though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/0ea827/32.png) [@chi](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/chi)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/html-formatted-text-in-report/14762/4 "2017-07-12T19:18:00Z")

</div>

At least in 7.8.4, the underlying reporting system supports a limited HTML subset. You have to wrap the text in a keychain expression to make this work. I am using html in a text shape but it should be working wherever keychain expressions are used.

```auto
@"<html><b>Bold</b><font color='red'>green</font>"@

```

See [this](http://www.reportmill.com/support/FormattedStrings.pdf) document for a list of supported tags.