A helpful hint for anyone with formatting errors when pasting from Word docs

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    thecybisarchive · Member ·

    This info is for Windows users who are experiencing formatting issues (messed up line spacing, bold or italic not appearing, etc. etc.) when pasting text from Microsoft Word into either the Classic Editor, the Block Editor, or the Block Editor’s Classic Block.

    After a couple of weeks brainstorming the line-spacing problem with a super-helpful Happiness Engineer here, I ran some comparison tests today using the current version of Microsoft Word (Office 2024, Word version 2503, Build 18623.20156), the most current version of Libre Writer (LibreOffice 25.2.2.2), and the final version of Open Office (4.1.15, circa December 2023.) The same line spacing errors consistently occured when text from either Word or Libre was pasted into either the Classic or Block editors.

    However, documents that were created in Open Office (Open Office Writer 4.1.15) retained all of their original formatting, with NO line spacing errors at all, when pasted into both the Classic and the Block editors. (Pasting documents from Word or LibreWriter into Open Office Writer does not “fix” them; they still re-paste into the WordPress editors with spacing glitches. The document has to be actually created in Open Office Writer for everything to paste perfectly into WordPress.)

    Because OpenOffice solved all of my formatting-loss issues (and because I do not compose directly into WordPress, ever) I’m going to use that for all my new posts from now on. The UI is definitely old-school compared to Word or even Libre, but I don’t care about that because what’s important is that it plays well with the WordPress editors! And, of course, it’s free.

    Also, I want to mention that OpenOffice allows you to choose which components of the suite you want to install. Because I want to stay with Excel and Word for everything other than writing my posts, I was able to install only Open Office Writer. I like the option of installing only the component that I need. But neither Microsoft Office nor Libre Office allows users to do that; with them, it’s an all-or-nothing installation.

    Hopefully this suggestion, of using OpenOffice Writer to avoid any formatting loss when pasting into either of the WordPress editors from a document, will help others who experience the same issues with the other apps.

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