Bulk Edit Item description, only appends, no option to replace

[keith198]

I was expecting my description to be replaced with the new text (using first drop down option), but it appends it. There does not seem to be an option to replace other than to file exchange , fix, upload.
I am a seasoned developer, something basic is missing I think, no option to replace what is there
The find and replace option, is not valid for my use case, I want to replace all existing

[shipscript]

@keith198 

This is true. eBay's bulk editor can only replace specific contiguous words, not the entire description, and the underyling HTML must exactly match in order for that replacement to work. There are no wildcard options in eBay's bulk editor. Additionally, the find/replace is limited to 1000 characters and may be able to address only 200 listings at a time.

File Exchange is the solution. For entire descriptions, you can upload a spreadsheet with new descriptions. The File Exchange revision requires only the Action (Revise), ItemID, and the new Description.  Be sure that there are no linebreaks in the new description code or File Exchange will fail. eBay has a tool to strip the linebreaks:

http://pics.ebay.com/aw/pics/pdf/us/file_exchange/FileExchangeDescriptionUtility.zip

If you need to modify all of your listings to replace various blocks of your description, the whole description, or only the beginning or end, with a common chunk of code, this online tool uses powerful regex wildcards to bulk find/replace as many as 20 different sections in your descriptions. The result is a spreadsheet of listing descriptions that is ready for upload to File Exchange. 

https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ActiveContent_support/BulkEditorInstructions.htm

[shipscript]

@keith198 

Many of your listings contain a script that was added by LastPass. The insertion occurs when you manually revise a listing, so it can not be controlled unless you disable LastPass prior to manually editing on eBay. I don't know if the listings that contain the LastPass scripts are old or new, although some show as many as 19 iterations, so they have been edited a number of times.  I captured one with 19 using this tool:

https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ActiveContentSandbox.htm?324337075992

Scroll down to the Markup tab to see the color-coded LastPass scripts.

The bulk Active Content Editor, mentioned previously, would capture and remove those scripts for you.  The tool can also capture the entire description and replace it with your common boilerplate, if that is the path you are taking.