MS-Word Direct To Editor?

  • Resolved jayjerome

    (@jayjerome)


    18 years, 3 months ago

    Somewhere in the codex I read that it’s not advised to copy directly from MS Word to the WordPress editor. Why not? There’s definite advantages to writing the original blog draft in Word (better font formatting, easier to link urls, more intuitive spell checker and thesaurus than in my html editor, etc..

    So what’s the downside?

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • better font formatting, easier to link urls, more intuitive spell checker and thesaurus than in my html editor, etc..

    Thats the downside. Word formats stuff for display Word, not for display inside WordPress.

    The quickest way to demonstrate the downside is to copy and paste a few entries from Word to WordPress, open a cpl browsers, and check your site.

    There’s few reasons why these forums are clogged with the same sorts of “this looks like crap in this browser” posts, one of those reasons is exactly that.

    Because word throws an incredible amount of formatting junk into anything it produces, and wp isn’t going to know what to do with it.

    Give it a try…. you’ll be amazed at how a simple paragraph can get trashed in the process.

    neener neener neener, i win ??

    *pthblt….* next time….

    Thread Starter jayjerome

    (@jayjerome)

    Well, I tried it, and there was one small problem (I didn’t default the word font to match the theme font, easily fixable) but aside from that, it worked fine…

    Anything else to worry about using it, besides having a paragraph trashed? Lost files? Crashes? Irate purists breaking into my house and drinking my favorite tequilla?

    If you don’t copy it all, you run the risk of pasting in unmatched <p> or <div> tags. And then you’ll just WISH we were drinking your favorite tequila!

    Thread Starter jayjerome

    (@jayjerome)

    what’s the worst that can happen if I paste in those unmatched tags — ?? even if it’s grusome, be specific — i can take it… i watched nearly two full episodes of The O.C. on Fox Fox last season — and survived that… so give me your best shot…

    Your layout goes completely pear-shaped. Sidebars fall to the ground, footers disappear. Weird fonts wander o’er the lands. Pure and unmitigated anarchy!

    Thread Starter jayjerome

    (@jayjerome)

    yikes… now i really need a drink!

    guess i better plod along with notetab pro and hope for a better tomorrow…

    shaking at my narrow escape, but thankful for the feedback…

    Actually, if it’s the ability to format on the fly, you’d do better to work with the in-built Rich Text Editor. While very far from perfect, it still is less likely to bork than is anything with the initials MS in it.

    Or have a go at the (beta) Windows Live Writer if you’re brave. I’ve played with it a bit and it’s actually rather slick.

    Hmmm. Have to play with that some! Interesting.

    And in fact, now that I installed it and set it up, just looking at it I think it will fix a problem with a client.

    Thank you, Handy Solo!

    [Edit: wow. That is about the slickest little hinky-dinky I have run across in I don’t even KNOW how long! And it’s free. Unbelievable!

    For any novices just getting acquainted with the problems associated with pasting directly from MS Word to WordPress, I’ve put together a short screencast which illustrates the problem and then shows how to fix it using the latent advanced editing features in the WordPress WYSIWYG:

    Screencast: WordPress and MS Word

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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