RTF adding <span> tags in CME

Question

In a Rich Text Field of a Component I add in some text for e.g. "This is my first line. This will be my second line.". I then hit Enter after "line.".

At this point when I view the source, I see the following:

<p>This is my first line.&#160;</p>
<p>This will be my second line.</p>

As expected.

However, now I go back into the design tab and click backspace to essentially have all the text in one line and this is how my source becomes:

<p>This is my first line.&#160;<span style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana;">This will be my second line.</span></p>

Where are these span tags coming from? How can I remove them to just keep the p tags? We are using Tridion 2011 SP1. Also, if it helps at all, I have tried replicating the same issue on another Tridion environment and this doesn't happen. So I believe this is a configuration thing, but don't really know where to start.

UPDATE 1

The XSLT for one of the Schema fields is shown below.

<stylesheet xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<output omit-xml-declaration="yes" method="xml" cdata-section-elements="script"></output>
<template match="/ | node() | @*">
    <copy>
        <apply-templates select="node() | @*"></apply-templates>
    </copy>
</template>
<template match="*[      (self::br or self::p or self::div)     and      normalize-space(translate(., &apos; &apos;, &apos;&apos;)) = &apos;&apos;     and      not(@*)     and      not(processing-instruction())     and      not(comment())     and      not(*[not(self::br) or @* or * or node()])     and      not(following::node()[not(         (self::text() or self::br or self::p or self::div)        and         normalize-space(translate(., &apos; &apos;, &apos;&apos;)) = &apos;&apos;        and         not(@*)        and         not(processing-instruction())        and         not(comment())        and         not(*[not(self::br) or @* or * or node()])       )])     ]">
    <!-- ignore all paragraphs and line-breaks at the end that have nothing but (non-breaking) spaces and line breaks -->
</template>
<template match="br[parent::div and not(preceding-sibling::node()) and not(following-sibling::node())]">
    <!-- Chrome generates <div><br/></div>. Renders differently in different browsers. Replace it with a non-breaking space -->
    <text> </text>
</template>

There are other RTFs that have the same issue too.

UPDATE 2

I have also looked at the XSLTs in the following location \TRIDION_HOME\Program Files (x86)\Tridion\web\WebUI\Core\Controls\FormatArea\XSLTs. I've compared these to working versions and both sets are identical.

UPDATE 3

Further to Robs comment, I have tested this across different browsers and can confirm this only happens in Chrome - all other browsers are fine.

Answer 1

You need to apply a template match for removing set of html tags which needs to be separated by Pipe symbol (|) such as span|em|p|br|i

Example:

<!-- Remove disallowed elements but keep its children -->
<template match="span|em">
    <apply-templates/>
</template>

Your Filter XSLT will look like this

<stylesheet xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
    <output omit-xml-declaration="yes" method="xml" cdata-section-elements="script"/>
    <template match="/ | node() | @*">
        <copy>
            <apply-templates select="node() | @*"/>
        </copy>
    </template>
    <template match="*[      (self::br or self::p or self::div)     and      normalize-space(translate(., &apos; &apos;, &apos;&apos;)) = &apos;&apos;     and      not(@*)     and      not(processing-instruction())     and      not(comment())     and      not(*[not(self::br) or @* or * or node()])     and      not(following::node()[not(         (self::text() or self::br or self::p or self::div)        and         normalize-space(translate(., &apos; &apos;, &apos;&apos;)) = &apos;&apos;        and         not(@*)        and         not(processing-instruction())        and         not(comment())        and         not(*[not(self::br) or @* or * or node()])       )])     ]">
        <!-- ignore all paragraphs and line-breaks at the end that have nothing but (non-breaking) spaces and line breaks -->
    </template>
    <template match="br[parent::div and not(preceding-sibling::node()) and not(following-sibling::node())]">
        <!-- Chrome generates <div><br/></div>. Renders differently in different browsers. Replace it with a non-breaking space -->
        <text> </text>
    </template>
    <!-- Remove disallowed elements but keep its children -->
    <template match="span|em">
        <apply-templates/>
    </template>
</stylesheet>