Fix the MS Word and WordPress Incompatibility Problem

At a guess …

MS Word makes non-standard code. MS Word CHANGES their code as they see fit. So any attempt to parse it would fail. If you’re using WordPress, why do you need to use MS Word to make HTML pages?

If you’re designing webpages, Word is about the worst thing you could use (same with Apple’s Pages IMO). You’re talking about using a WordProcessing tool for Webdesign. That’s akin to saying you’re going to use MS Paint to edit photos. Sure you can do it, but boy is it fugly.

Writing, it turns out, is mainly about drafting content not formatting or HTML. Nearly every professional writer I know uses MS Word. As a word processor it is vastly superior to WordPress, Wordpad or other featureless alternatives. That said, I know that Word sucks for Web work, but I still expect WordPress and other blogs to create a bridge to it. To just ignore it and say use Wordpad is like telling a painter to use an etch-o-sketch. Allowing this incompatibility to persist is the wrong course of action by both WordPress and Microsoft.

The “bridge” you want has already been created, more than a year ago. The problem is that you’re still using the slippery rocks crossing the river. ??

Modern versions of Word can publish directly to WordPress blogs using XML-RPC or the Atom Publishing Protocol. Just enable those on the Settings->Writing page (in WordPress) and then use the Publish-to-blog functionality in Word itself. It works and Word even cleans up its own crappy formatting in the process.

If you are cutting and pasting, then not only are you doing it wrong, but you’re doing it in a way that’s basically impossible to “fix”. I think that the Publish-To-Blog functionality was added to Word 2007, but you can also try Windows Live Writer for editing and publishing to your blog directly. Cut-and-paste from Word might be more amenable if you paste it into WLW.

Otto, that’s with the ‘new’ XML word, though, right? Word 12 that came out last year? Which *cough* I don’t use. I hate Word in general.

Most ‘professional’ writers I know use whatever tool they’re comfortable with, which includes OpenOffice, Pages, Word, and WordPerfect. There is no ‘standard’ that I’m aware of, thanks to there not being a monopoly on creativity ??

If you’re just drafting content, and don’t care about formatting or HTML, then it really doesn’t matter what you use so long as it meets your desires. Mine include spell checking.

Anywhere, here’s a screencast of how to do what Otto’s talking about: https://faq.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/bringing-content-into-wordpress-from-microsoft-word-screencast/

Which was found on a google search for ‘Word to WordPress’ ??

Otto, that’s with the ‘new’ XML word, though, right? Word 12 that came out last year? Which *cough* I don’t use. I hate Word in general.

You’re telling this to a person who is reading it in Firefox, on a computer running Fedora 10, and who also has Evolution looking at his work email from an Exchange Server (which he is lobbying to get rid of), has Eclipse running on an alternate screen with a bunch of PHP code in it, and has OpenOffice Writer open in yet another screen with some documentation for some rather esoteric Java library. I do have a Windows machine sitting here, but it’s currently running VirtualBox with an Ubuntu installation upgrading itself to Intrepid Ibex in it. ??

If somebody wants to use Word to write their blog posts, more power to ’em I say. However, when they complain about WordPress and Microsoft not doing anything to make the two more compatible while not knowing that Word 2007 and up publishes directly to WordPress with zero problems, then that strikes me as rather annoying, is all.

+1, Otto. ITA. This actually did get me interested in looking at Word 2007 though so I’ll have to go find a friend to let me play on it.

(I’m running OS X, XP, Vista and Ubuntu all at once right now … Virtulization for the win! They’re all shuttin’ down for the weekend now! Thanks, Otto!)