Notes fields and line breaks

Notes fields and line breaks

I have an application which is designed to show a Rich Text Field in a stateless form  "On Load", however the line breaks are removed, for example, the following value is entered into a multi-line text field

This is a sentence with sub items.  The sub items are as follows:
i) sub item 1;
ii) sub item 2;
iii) sub item 3.

When I edit the record "On Load", the  Multi-line Text Field is hidden and the a Notes Field is set to display the value of the  Multi-line Text Field. 
eg.
hide myfield
note1 = input.myfield

The notes field displays:
 
This is a sentence with sub items.  The sub items are as follows:  i) sub item 1;  ii) sub item 2;  iii) sub item 3.

If you copy the  Multi-line Text Field  value into a Rich Text Field with line and update, then set the notes field to get the Rich Text Field value, the Notes field will display correctly with the line breaks.  

The problem is that if you import a spreadsheet with cell values that include line breaks, the line breaks will import into the Multi-line Text Field , but Rich Text Field with import without line breaks.  

The result is that I cannot import Multi-line cell values into an application and have it display with line breaks in a Notes Field  as intended. 

Is there something I am overlooking to make this work without having to individually copy and paste into each record to display in the Notes field.