As I am actively working on a new training program called SPELL, it recently occurred to me that I should make Halloween a special day. So let’s start the tradition, the SPELL program annual trick or treat!

I have described many times my HTML Calculated Column technique on this blog. The idea is to use a calculated column to build html content. You have certainly already tried them out, for example for color coded calendars, progress bars, or KPIs.

The catch is that SharePoint won’t naturally interpret the string as html, so extra work is needed to do the conversion – usually done using JavaScript or xslt.

Now, rendering an html string as actual html is something any rich text editor can do, why is it so complicated with SharePoint? Oh yes, here is the thing: the output of calculated columns is just plain text. Ah, if only I could change it to rich text! Or find a way to transfer the content of my calculated column to a field that understands rich text!

But…Wait…

[To be continued]