I’ve always recommended that people not paste text directly into WordPress from Microsoft Word, and instead suggested that they open their Microsoft Notepad, paste into Notepad, then copy and paste back into WordPress. This extra step removes the stupid formatting put in place by Microsoft Word.
Apparently, a recent addition to WordPress (maybe 2.3?) added a button on the WordPress text editor that allows you to paste information directly from Microsoft Word, and instantly strips out all the formatting. I’m exactly not sure how long it’s been there, but it works very well.
First you have to open the advanced toolbar options to see the new button button –
This expands the menu to a second level where you will immediately see the option for Microsoft Word pasting.
Hitting that button opens another small window, where you can paste from Word to your hearts content.
Nice!
thank you
I had this problem with IE and your clarification here helped me a lot
Josef
You are wonderful. My front page issue is resolved and I am ecstatic. TY TY TY
I agonized over it for days because I couldn’t stand the way it looked.
Hi,
Thanks a lot. I have the same issue. Now i need to rework the pages in my website.
Cheers,
Jennifer
Luckily, it was the last post I had put up. As soon as I deleted it everything was ok.
Thanks for the great tip!
One other question, when I import the doc in fromword, sections that are bulleted come out in very small type. How can I make it the same size as the rest of the document?
Thanks,
Jim
Thank you so much!
It really helped!
For some reason, your comment bounced to the spam folder, i’m sorry for the delay-
Anyway, if the formatting still isn’t right, then I know of no way to get it “correct” without first pasting from MS word into MS Notepad or WordPad, then pasting into WordPress. That box is supposed to strip out all Word formatting, but doesn’t always work, depending on your version of Word…
Thanks for the info, my blog was having issues with IE as well and it solved my problem!!
Sam
I could not import “WordArt.” A blank text box was visible, but no image.
No, you can’t import WordArt because it’s not text – you have to save the wordart as an image, and add it like any other image…
How can I get what I write in Word to KEEP the same formatting for my website ? Everytime I copy text, using the MS Word pasting, it changes the format and it become a nightmare to get the page looking the way I want it. Am spending sooooo much time on this. Frustrating.
Please help !
So helpful, thank you. A great feeling to have mastered yet another step
Hi, thanks for detailed explaination of this usefull trick.But , what we can do if we have some images in word document also , as I tried it only paste texts? Is there any word press plugin for this purpose? Thanks again.
You’re welcome!
Stripping of the MS Word formatting removes everything, however – even if it didn’t do that, you would still be forced to upload the images, because those Word document photos are in your own c:/My Documents/My Pictures/ etc. folder!
There’s no WP plugin (that I’m aware of… anyone?), and this is the only way I know of to easily paste photos into WordPress and there’s a 2 minute demo video on the page. Works really well, and it’s great for adding a lot of photos to a page…
Thanks for a super “to the point” post.
I can never remember which tool to use to paste Word text into WordPress.
I use Textarea found on http://www.mytextarea.com to convert messy text from MS Word to clean plain text for pasting into WordPress. It works like a charm!
Where is this toolbar? I’m using 3.4.1 & I don’t see it… Also when I type to add content to anything in my admin area I.E. under :add new post” or when making a new page etc… Nothing shows when I type there??
Any suggestions?
First you have to open the advanced toolbar options to see the new button button – See the top image in the post – when you hover over it, it says “Show Hide kitchen Sink” – That brings up the second toolbar. It’s there in all WP versions…
As far as this goes –
“…in my admin area I.E. under :add new post” or when making a new page etc… Nothing shows when I type there??”
sorry, I’ve got no clue – Try Firefox?
Thank you for the reply.. I don’t see any toolbar or any place to open a toolbar.. Where would that be? And I am using Firefox, IE blows! lol
I utilize TinyMCE Advanced plugin for wordpress and that has helped a lot. I still, on occasion use Word for spellcheck, then copy into something like Notepad++ to remove formating issues and then into wordpress. It just depends on how big or how long the article is that I’m working on.
If I want to copy a wordart to WordPress it will always show only the textinformation but not the real Wordart.
How can I copay Wordart text to WordPress?
You would have to take a screen-shot image of the wordart, and post it as a graphic. I know of no other way…
thank you for the contribution.
Best regards
As of today, the “paste from Word” button has been removed. I used it yesterday. wordpress.com has modified their “Microsoft Word” support item to tell us to use the “paste as plain text” button instead (http://en.support.wordpress.com/microsoft-word/). That means you have to manually redo any italics, BF, etc. I guess they wanted to stop supporting “paste from Word.”
Negative – Perhaps you are referring to a WordPress.com site, but for a self hosted WP installation, 100% up to date the W button is still there like always…
It’s definitely not there in WP 3.9.
I need to paste in a bunch of word docs that were written by several different people and the formatting is getting lost. I may have to try Tiny MCE
Huh… you’re right, it’s not there anymore… I hadn’t noticed. Actually, the button didn’t keep the formatting anyway, and was intentionally designed that way to strip away the poor Word formatting. You’re going to get a cleaner page by pasting into the .html tab, then redefining the formatting in the visual editor.