Copy and Paste Word document to HTML form

Many users without computer knowledge copy contents from a Word document, paste them into an HTML form (<textarea></textarea>), and expect to retain formatting as well as special characters such as smart quotes and emdashes. When copying and pasting content from a Word document to an HTML form, it's important to be aware that Word documents often contain formatting and styles that may not directly translate to HTML.

You may opt to translate smart quotes to regular quotes and emdashes to regular dashes but how do you do it? If any user submits non-ASCII character content, you'll probably see weird characters in the database and HTML pages. Finding and fixing just a few of them (curly quotes and em dashes) isn't going to solve the real problem.

Here's a general approach to copy and paste content from a Word document to an HTML form:

1. Plain Text Paste

Before pasting, make sure to paste the content as plain text. Most text editors and HTML forms have an option for pasting as plain text. This helps to remove any formatting that might not be compatible with HTML.

2. Use an Intermediate Text Editor

Copy the content from the Word document and paste it into an intermediate plain text editor (e.g., Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac). This step helps in stripping out any formatting that could cause issues in HTML.

3. Copy from Text Editor to HTML Form

Copy the content from the plain text editor and paste it into the HTML form. This ensures that you are pasting clean, unformatted text.

4. Manually Adjust Formatting

After pasting, you might need to manually adjust formatting in the HTML form. This includes adjusting headings, lists, and other elements that might have lost their original formatting during the copy-paste process.

5. Check and Clean HTML

Inspect the HTML code generated after pasting. Clean up any unnecessary or unwanted HTML tags. Sometimes, Word introduces additional tags that are not needed in HTML.

Upload Images Separately

If your Word document contains images, note that copying and pasting may not handle images well. You may need to upload and insert images separately into the HTML form.