# Collection in List style pulling from Data spreadsheet only shows raw text **URL:** \ **Category:** Ask for Help\ **Created:** [September 14, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165 "2023-09-14T22:13:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mhsu\_pw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@mhsu\_pw](https://community.glideapps.com/u/mhsu_pw)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/1 "2023-09-14T22:13:00Z")
I’m trying to figure out how to use the Collection in List style to display the Description field in Rich Text / Markdown rather than as plain text. The column in my data table is a Rich Text / Markdown column, but is only displaying the Markdown characters rather than applying them. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/e/6/e63eb9dbd22bf254b9493c3912283c01be1fd5c7.png) Is this just how the List style works? Is there some other way to do this that will show multi-line formatted text? (None of the other styles seem to be able to show multi-line text in a compact way.) ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 10:20pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/2 "2023-09-14T22:20:13Z")
Use a Custom Collection with rich text component inside the collection container. ---
**Author:** ![mhsu\_pw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@mhsu\_pw](https://community.glideapps.com/u/mhsu_pw)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 10:25pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/3 "2023-09-14T22:25:38Z")
I know I can use a Rich Text component, but these are multiple lines on a spreadsheet and I want this FAQ list to automatically update every time I add a line to the spreadsheet. I want to use a component that simply pulls the data from the spreadsheet without having to update the page manually for every question. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 10:29pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/4 "2023-09-14T22:29:15Z")
> [@Jeff\_Hager](#): > > Use a Custom Collection . ---
**Author:** ![mhsu\_pw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@mhsu\_pw](https://community.glideapps.com/u/mhsu_pw)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 10:53pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/5 "2023-09-14T22:53:09Z")
Repeating yourself is not a helpful answer. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 10:56pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/6 "2023-09-14T22:56:30Z")
So you added a custom collection component to your screen, then added a rich text component pointing to the column in your table with the markdown, and it still didn’t work? It’s exactly what @Robert_Petitto showed in his video. > [@arrow\_forward Accordion Text using inline HTML](https://community.glideapps.com/t/accordion-text-using-inline-html/56643/9): > > Take a look: Here’s the documentation on custom collections. > **[Custom Collection](https://www.glideapps.com/docs/essentials/components/collections/custom-collection)** > > Build dynamic, reusable collections of data with Custom Collections. If something still isn’t clear, feel free to share some screenshots showing how you tried to set it up. ---
**Author:** ![nathanaelb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/nathanaelb/32/43079_2.png) [@nathanaelb](https://community.glideapps.com/u/nathanaelb)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 11:45pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/7 "2023-09-14T23:45:19Z")
@mhsu_pw It might help to understand how the custom collection works: - Each new item of the collection, often represented by a card or line in the display (though custom collections can do more than that), represents a row in the table. - Each component of the collection, which you can add in the selection panel on the left-hand side, represents a column or group of columns (attributes) in the table. So the collection elements go vertically in the table, whereas components go horizontally, if that makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![mhsu\_pw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@mhsu\_pw](https://community.glideapps.com/u/mhsu_pw)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2023, 12:14am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/8 "2023-09-15T00:14:19Z")
@Jeff_Hager Your third answer actually contained some helpful steps to check, as well as resources. Thank you. I have tried the HTML-based accordions, but unfortunately they do not have the option to pull data from a spreadsheet. With the clarification from @nathanaelb I finally understand why I’ve been told to use a Custom Collection component. It will automatically iterate over all rows in a spreadsheet that meet the any Filter Data criteria that is set in the Custom Collection’s Options. All the user needs to do is create the Components and set them to the correct field of the data. This level of information is not present in any of the help pages that I was able to find, so thank you again Nathaniel! While testing these two solutions, I discovered something - I was confused about why, when I added a Custom Collection component, it was being added not as Custom but as just Collection. Turns out that you cannot add a Custom Collection to a Container component. Glide does not give any sort of message but fails silently and converts it to a basic Collection within the Container. I will log this interaction as a bug. Now that I have that information, I am able to add a Custom Collection. Based on Nathaniel’s response, I realized that the two components that I add to that Custom Collection are Text (pulling Data from the Question field of my spreadsheet) and Rich Text (pulling Data from the Answer field of my spreadsheet). ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/0/b/0bfc5bd37401c8a47524374a45680e4e9ef16f84.jpeg) Now I have been able to get a well-formatted FAQ that pulls automatically from our spreadsheet. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2023, 1:01am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/9 "2023-09-15T01:01:40Z")
> [@mhsu\_pw](#): > > While testing these two solutions, I discovered something - I was confused about why, when I added a Custom Collection component, it was being added not as Custom but as just Collection. Turns out that you cannot add a Custom Collection to a Container component. Glide does not give any sort of message but fails silently and converts it to a basic Collection within the Container. I will log this interaction as a bug. That doesn’t sound right. ![Pages Test · Glide 2023-09-15 at 8.00.02 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/e/2/e23ef62f0fa056b810c2bb473bb89585a181c0ed.png) “Custom” is its own component, while a collection can take any other forms. From what you described, there’s a chance you chose another type of collection, instead of custom. Also, there’s no chance you can add a custom collection inside a container. That’s not supported. ---
**Author:** ![mhsu\_pw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@mhsu\_pw](https://community.glideapps.com/u/mhsu_pw)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2023, 3:08am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/10 "2023-09-15T03:08:43Z")
Hi @ThinhDinh - The screenshot you provided is exactly the component that I was clicking to add to my page. That is, in my understanding, a Custom Collection component. When added to a page, it is given the label “Custom Collection” which can be seen in my screenshot as the third item up from the bottom. When I try to add it to a Container, though, I do not get any sort of error message. If that action is not supported, I would expect an error message saying so. I have logged that as a bug. ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2023, 3:21am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/11 "2023-09-15T03:21:58Z")
I mean you can’t drag that into a container anyway… It will just go out of the container and work on its own, so I can’t see how that can “convert to a basic collection”. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/system/32/53398_2.png) [@system](https://community.glideapps.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2023, 3:22am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/collection-in-list-style-pulling-from-data-spreadsheet-only-shows-raw-text/66165/12 "2023-09-22T03:22:21Z")
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