Understanding text field behavior when updating Notion page properties

Other Questions Notion
1

I’m working with the Notion API and I’m having difficulties with text properties. In the data for my page, the text property is structured as an array. I’m curious if it’s possible to insert multiple text objects into this array.

Currently, this is the data that I get back from my page response:

{ 
  "object": "page", 
  "id": "abc789", 
  "created_time": "2021-03-10T10:30:00.000Z", 
  "last_edited_time": "2021-06-20T14:15:45.220Z", 
  "parent": { 
    "type": "database_id", 
    "database_id": "def456" 
  }, 
  "archived": false, 
  "properties": { 
    "Notes": { 
      "id": "xYz9", 
      "type": "text", 
      "text": [ 
        { 
          "type": "text", 
          "text": { 
            "content": "sample text\nanother line", 
            "link": null 
          }, 
          "annotations": { 
            "bold": false, 
            "italic": false, 
            "strikethrough": false, 
            "underline": false, 
            "code": false, 
            "color": "default" 
          }, 
          "plain_text": "sample text\nanother line", 
          "href": null 
        } 
      ] 
    } 
  } 
}

When I attempt to update this with a PATCH request that includes multiple text objects, I notice odd behavior. All formatting annotations change to true even though I have defined them as false. Here’s the data I’m sending:

{ 
  "properties": { 
    "Notes": { 
      "text": [ 
        { 
          "type": "text", 
          "text": { 
            "content": "first part", 
            "link": null 
          }, 
          "annotations": { 
            "bold": false, 
            "italic": false, 
            "strikethrough": false, 
            "underline": false, 
            "code": false, 
            "color": "default" 
          } 
        }, 
        { 
          "type": "text", 
          "text": { 
            "content": "second part", 
            "link": null 
          }, 
          "annotations": { 
            "bold": false, 
            "italic": false, 
            "strikethrough": false, 
            "underline": false, 
            "code": false, 
            "color": "default" 
          } 
        } 
      ] 
    } 
  } 
}

However, the response indicates all annotations are true, which is not what I need. Has anyone faced this issue? Can anyone suggest what might be causing this behavior?

2

I’ve hit this exact issue before. You’re using a “text” property but you need “rich_text” instead. Text properties are just for simple single-line stuff, while rich_text handles all the formatting and multiple text objects. Switch your PATCH request to use “rich_text” and double-check that your database column is set up as rich text, not basic text. This type mismatch is usually what makes the API act weird with formatting.

3

sounds like a weird api bug tbh. try omitting the annotations object entirely when they’re all default values? sometimes notion’s api gets confused when you explicitly set things to false instead of just leaving them out. might be worth testing with just the text content first

4

I hit this exact issue with Notion’s API last year. Your annotations flipping to true is usually a version mismatch or wrong endpoint problem. Double-check you’re using the right API version in your headers - I was on an older version that handled text properties differently. Also make sure you’re hitting the page endpoint with PATCH, not accidentally targeting a block update endpoint. One more thing - verify your database schema actually supports rich text formatting for that property. If it doesn’t, the API might just default everything to true.