# What's up with the stripped formatting in IMs?
**URL:** https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191
**Category:** General
**Created:** [August 28, 2024, 3:18pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191 "2024-08-28T15:18:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2024, 3:18pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/1 "2024-08-28T15:18:16Z")
If I type the below message, then I see it in my chat window as-is but the peer gets plain text w/o any formatting.
_italic_ **bold**
They get:
italic bold
They return one to me with the formatting, but I get it plain-text. What’s missing?
---
### Author:  [@grim](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/grim)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2024, 8:22pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/2 "2024-08-28T20:22:34Z")
What protocol is this on? Is the peer also on Pidgin? If so do they have the `Tools -> Preferences -> Conversations -> Show formatting on incoming messages` preference enabled?
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/3 "2024-08-29T01:34:24Z")
We use XMPP only. Pidgin only.
The option is on. I believe it is the default that we never change.
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### Author:  [@grim](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/grim)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2024, 5:28am UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/4 "2024-08-29T05:28:52Z")
I just verified the setting works as expected sending from 2 XMPP accounts on different servers in the same Pidgin instance.
You may want to check the `Help -> Debug Window` on the receiving side looking for a line like the following. You can see the formatted messages in the `` block. If it’s not there the server could be stripping them out.
```auto
(00:24:41) **jabber:** Recv (ssl)(522): Hello! How are you?Hello! How are you?
```
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/5 "2024-08-30T20:08:03Z")
The only difference between the clients for which it works and for those for which it does not is that it works for the clients on the LAN or VPN but does not work across the public Internet.
I can’t see the contents of the messages in the log because we have OMEMO enabled, and the log dumps the encrypted body which is genius.
Could you reach out to the OMEMO dev and try to coordinate at least some level of cooperation, so that your app and their lib make sense of each other?
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### Author:  [@grim](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/grim)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2024, 8:15pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/6 "2024-08-30T20:15:07Z")
gkdr has basically retired as far as I know.
By public internet do you you accessing the server via the public internet or is another XMPP server in the mix here. If another server is in the mix, it’s possible that they are not sending the body with the formatting.
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2024, 11:16am UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/7 "2024-08-31T11:16:39Z")
In this context, the public internet is a packet carrier. There is only one server.
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2024, 11:16pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/8 "2024-08-31T23:16:31Z")
> [@grim](#):
>
> gkdr has basically retired as far as I know.
It’s worth double-checking this assertion because there is recent activity in lurch github under that account, and the current state of affairs is absurd.
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2024, 2:41pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/9 "2024-09-01T14:41:49Z")
It is OMEMO that strips the formatting. Should it even interfere with the contents of XMPP messages?
There is not enough words to express the state of IM softwares in this world.
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### Author:  [@grim](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/grim)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2024, 10:58pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/10 "2024-09-02T22:58:29Z")
It could be, I haven’t tested that personally so I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2024, 1:08pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/11 "2024-09-05T13:08:28Z")
You should understand that without a working privacy plugin there is very little need for another IM client. It takes very little effort to reach out to the lurch dev and explain to them what they should or should not do. If you don’t give a damn that’s your right but I just wanted to put things into perspective: there are already too many working messengers out there as it is.
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### Author:  [@grim](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/grim)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2024, 7:51pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/12 "2024-09-05T19:51:42Z")
We are all volunteers here. People work on stuff because they want to there is no other motivating factors. It is unlikely that I’ll be able to convince them to pickup work on something they are already unmotivated to work on.
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### Author:  [@smogr](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/u/smogr)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2024, 7:43pm UTC](https://discourse.imfreedom.org/t/whats-up-with-the-stripped-formatting-in-ims/191/13 "2024-09-13T19:43:28Z")
I do not insist on anything, only put things in perspective. That was an informational message rather than conversational. Hope having another perspective on things helps volunteers prioritize their work because staying in silos narrows everyone’s horizon. We use maybe less than 10% of the overall functionality in Pidging and never opened 90% of its menus, but if it cannot reliably pass our IM’s among our users, then we consider it 100% non-working. And this applies to any software, not just Pidgin and not just IM.
The refusal of dev teams to fix basic show-stopper errors have spelled many softwares’ doom. It would be shame if Pidgin goes into obscurity as well because it cannot cooperate with OTR and OMEMO.