Back in my SEO agency days, we delivered content by uploading it directly to the customer's website. That was usually done using RSS, but if a client's website was built using WordPress, we would upload it via their WP admin page instead.
Some of my colleagues would write the page from scratch directly into WordPress, which at the time didn't always save every edit immediately. More than a few times, an internet glitch erased entire articles, with no way to restore the lost content.
This is just one reason why I prefer to write content in Microsoft Word, with my active document backed up to OneDrive in real time. Every edit I make is immediately stored online in the cloud, I can roll back to previous versions if I spot a significant error, and I can access my documents from other computers if I need to.
But of course, MS Word adds all sorts of formatting to the text. In some cases this can be helpful - I have standard Styles set up for H1, H2 and H3 subheadings, which makes it easier to structure my content in the way it will appear on the website.
At times though, this formatting can be a hindrance. My own blog is powered by Blogger, which gives me two ways to paste content from Word:
- 'Compose' view with full MS Word formatting
- 'HTML' view with no formatting at all
(There is a 'clear formatting' option hidden away at the far-right of the Blogger toolbar, but this Content Hack is a quick and easy way to achieve the same thing on any PC, for any CMS.)
What's the problem?
The problem with pasting formatted content into a CMS is that you get a lot of unnecessary HTML code, which can do weird things to your page layout. Paragraphs can end up double-spaced, or not spaced at all, fonts may display incorrectly, and you risk losing valuable SEO-friendly HTML tags like H2 and H3 headings.
Conversely, when you paste completely unformatted content into HTML view, many CMS platforms will ignore line breaks (unless each line break is marked with a <br> or <p> tag) and your entire page will post as a single block of text with no paragraphs.
What you need is a middle ground solution, whereby the text posts without font formatting (allowing you to add your CSS styles in place of the MS Word formats) but keeps those line breaks, paragraphs, subheadings and lists.
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| Blogger's 'Clear formatting' option is hidden on a secondary menu. |
On Blogger, the 'clear formatting' button can do this after pasting formatted text into Compose view - but is there an easy way to clear formatting before uploading the content to your CMS?
The easy way to clear MS Word formatting
There is a reliable solution to this problem, and it's one I use often. It can also be useful to copy and paste weirdly formatted text into a Word document, if 'paste unformatted' is giving you strange results.
It's simply this:
- Copy your content from MS Word
- Paste your content into Notepad
- Copy your content from Notepad
- Paste your content into your CMS
- Add your HTML/CSS formatting
Notepad can now be configured to display text in the font of your choice, but it essentially still works with plain, unformatted text. You can even still turn off Word Wrap on the View menu, if you only want to see where you have inserted manual line breaks.
Because of this, when you copy content from Notepad and paste it into a CMS in Compose view, you get line breaks where you want them, but plain text apart from that.
But now my text isn't formatted...??
True, but that's actually the desirable outcome. It's much better to paste unformatted text (but with line breaks) and then add minimal formatting using HTML and CSS, than it is to paste formatted text and expect Microsoft Word formatting to look right online.
Of course, if you hire a good freelance writer for website content, they can handle all of this for you - if you want me to upload content directly on to your website (or save it into Drafts so you can check it before publishing) I can do that and apply the relevant HTML formatting and CSS styles throughout the page as needed.
But if you're trying to upload content written in Microsoft Word and struggling to clear fonts and formatting without losing all your paragraph breaks, this is one quick and easy solution to get your text into a more workable format (or not-format, as the case may be...).
And in case you're wondering - yes, I do use this method myself. I also have shortcuts set up to paste into MS Word without keeping any font formatting, so as far as possible, the only styles and formatting in my content are those I've added myself.
Need help with this issue?
Feel free to contact me via email or on my socials if you want any help with this issue, or if you'd like to discuss content for your website or blog. I can either deliver pages in a Microsoft Word document, via Google Docs or directly to your CMS.
I'm familiar with various CMS platforms, including WordPress, and I can add any Custom Fields your website template relies on, as well as SEO meta titles, descriptions and so on. Just ask if you need me to allow time for any of these extras, which I can usually do at no extra cost.
