What text type are multi line text columns in SharePoint lists?

Question

When accessing a multi line text field from a SharePoint item in a list, what is the text type returned?

Using C#:

item["Description"].ToString()

Is the above plaintext or html or...?

I want to format the text to be put in a HTML email ultimately, but all formatting of the string in the actual description is lost when doing so.

Answer 1

You may have to change the description column using Powershell to include HTML.

$Web = Get-SPWeb "yoururl.domain.com/particularweb"
$Field = $web.Fields | ?{$_.staticname -eq "MyCustomColumn"}
$Field.RichText = $True
$Field.RichTextMode = "FullHtml"
$Field.Update()

Source: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/nl-NL/sharepointadminprevious/thread/a6d1b087-4d06-4e8f-8f69-043e15b04819

EDIT: Try this:

SPFieldMultiLineText multilineField = item.Fields.GetField(COLUMN_NAME) as SPFieldMultiLineText;

 if (multilineField != null)
 {
 // Get the field value as HTML
 string text = multilineField.GetFieldValueAsHtml(item[COLUMN_NAME], item);
 }

Source: http://blog.myitechnology.com/2009/06/append-new-line-to-spfieldmultilinetext.html