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Starting with the Maximo 7.5 release, long descriptions have been enabled for rich text. However, if you want to disable rich text for long descriptions - you can configure Maximo to do this. This article describes how to disable the rich text - along with some items you may want to consider before implementing this change.
1) Make a backup copy of the control-registry.xml file that is in <maximo_home>/applications/maximo/properties.
2) Open the file in an editor like notepad (or notepad++).
3) Find the text: <control-descriptor name="longdescription"
4) Once found, scroll a little farther down. Within that control descriptor block, there will be a section that looks like:
5) Add the following text (in bold and blue, note the <!-- and --> that are added):
6) Rebuild and redeploy the maximo.ear file.