# Can't apply styles to string from external source

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-apply-styles-to-string-from-external-source/133759>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 3, 2008, 10:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-apply-styles-to-string-from-external-source/133759 "2008-04-03T10:06:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lasastard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/58956e/32.png) [@lasastard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lasastard)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 10:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-apply-styles-to-string-from-external-source/133759/1 "2008-04-03T10:06:39Z")

</div>

Hi,

I’ve been reading up a bit on this but couldnt find a solution, so maybe  
someone here has some good advice.

I am running some data through BioRuby (which, among other things, calls  
an external program from the shell). This procedure returns a BioRuby  
object, similar to an array or hash. In my rails application, each  
element of this object can be puts’d and then, for example, gsub’ed, but  
the puts’d object will not accept any font-modifications, like  
font-size, font-style or whatever else via \<%=  
bioruby\_object.string %\>.  
What could be the reason for this behavior?

Cheers,

Marc