If you’ve tried to copy/paste from Microsoft Word into WordPress, you may have noticed a lot of strange code that appears. This is Microsoft Word specific code that WordPress can’t read.
Now, this might normally be a problem, but the gurus at WordPress have provided you with a handy little “Paste from Word” button which does all the work of stripping out that Word-specific code for you! It even leaves your hyperlinks and most formatting intact.
As you can see, it’s the little button with a clipboard and the word icon. Clicking on this button brings up a special Paste From Word pane:
To paste from Word, copy the text from your Word document and then paste it into this pane, using the Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-V. WordPress automatically strips out all that Word code (be aware that sometimes it adds extra line breaks between paragraphs as well). Press “Insert” to add the text to your post or page, and you’re done!
Note: If you create headings in Word, they will not be recognized as headings in WordPress, which isn’t good news for SEO. If you anticipate having a lot of headings in your post, it may be best to type the post with the headings in normal text, and change them to headings once you’ve pasted into WordPress.
I have used this method for a long time. However, when I upgraded from Word 2007 to Word 2010, it does not work as well. I get an extra blank line between paragraphs, and I lose bold or italics. Didn’t do that with Word 2007. It’s a pain to go back through the post and put those features back in.
Thomas, I tired it and noticed two things: I lose my formatting and it still doesn’t strip out all the extra code.
Is there any reason I don’t want to directly paste my Word text directly into the form? It seems to work for me.
Microsoft Word code can break the webpage for certain versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer (yes you read that correctly). This is classic Microsoft not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing. Newer versions of IE do a better job with MS Word code but it is better to be safe than sorry.
Cannot find the ( connect from wordpress clipboard ) to transfer word’
Help !
Have you clicked on the “kitchen sink” icon?
I can’t find the kitchen sink icon.I am using Office 2010 Corporate.
While this works, the issue I have is that WordPress for whatever reason adds additional space between every line. Not sure if there’s an easy way to change the default line height in WordPress (other than changing the CSS).
I don’t have a kitchen sink or import from Word icon. Is this only for self-hosted blogs? I have created over 100 blog posts by pasting directly from word and today is the only time this has not worked. WordPress is constantly regressing.
Would it be better just to copy and paste it into the html editor within WP? Does this not strip all the extra code? Just seams to be a little easier but not sure if this can cause issues.
Any luck doing this on an ipad? When I try, the insert buttoning the pop up window disappears. Haven’t been able to find an app that allows it either.
In wordpress 3.9 removes the “paste from word” button entirely, if i copy from MS paste to WP format MS is lost, you have solustion???
Having read this I thought it was very enlightening. I
appreciate you spending some time and energy to put this informative article together.
I once again find myself personally spending way too much time both reading
and commenting. But so what, it was still worthwhile!