pasting text to a post

Yes, you need to use a simple text editor, like Notepad.
You should never copy text and it’s formatting in Word and paste into WordPress.
If you are using the visual editor in WP, you can style your post there after you have copied the text over from a text editor.

Hi, thanks for the advice, but that was the first thing I tried. Even if I paste paragraph by paragraph from Notepad, the text disappears when I click “publish”

To test if this an unrelated issue to your pasted text, create a test post by typing it out, in the visual editor, by hand, a simple test post. Report back.

yep, the letters that I have typed in letter by letter appear, but the pasted in words don’t.
*only the letters I actually type in appear when I publish*

Word contains hidden characters that are used to tell a rich text editor how to display your document…If you look at the Kitchen Sink (the double row of icons above the post editor (Visual Tab), you will see a ‘W’…use this to paste text from word, but even that is not fool proof and fails at times.

Your best bet is to use the post editor directly to enter your text (manually) and save as a draft until ready to publish…or, use a Desktop Publishing Tool

Thanks fro all the help, guys. It turns out that there must be a bug caused by the “-” character. When I used that character, everything after it disappeared. I had been using it fine in WordPress, but with the SimpleScripts install to BlueHost you just can’t use the “-” in your posts.