Yes, this is something I should have figure out a year ago.

When copy/pasting text from MS word into a forum post, how do you make it maintain formating? Paragraph spacing is the most important, but keeping italics and stuff is as well. In the past, i've manually gone in and typed in the spaces, but that doesn't seem feasible with a large document.

 

So far I've only managed to keep the spacing by typing it in openoffice or notepad. The italics look like they carry over, but it vanishes when you hit the post button. Same thing with centered text.

 

That is disappointing. Surely someone who's posted a long work in WBA knows how to do it?

 

There is a little button at the right (with a small "A" and a bigger blue underlined "A") with the caption "Switch editor mode". You get a non-wysiwyg editor which I prefer vastly. Less trouble copy pasting, font colors, etc.

Otherwise, on the opposite side, there is another similar button with a red cross on the two "A", which removes all formatting.

Edit: screw it, an image is better to explain this >_>

 

Furthermore, I've found that various programs allow you to copy just the text or copy the formatting as well. IE and Firefox -- when you copy a text, you tend to copy the formatting as well, so when you paste it in word, the formatting remains.

However, Opera (if you're using it as a browser) only allows you to copy it as text, it does not copy the formatting as well.

 

Different word processors get me different results. MSWord and apparently OpenOffice can run VB scripts. Try this one: Convert Word document to BBcode

BBcode is the name of the formatting we use in our forum posts.

 

I loaded the BB code, but it did nothing to help with the spacing, but I found something that did.

Running the converter gets the italics in place rather easily, but not the spacing. And doing the spacing while it is in the forum post is sometimes tricky. Never knowing where the next paragraph starts exactly.

So I ran the converter, btw when the page says save it as a .bas, just cut and paste into Notepad and save as .bas, then copied everything into Notepad. There you can see the lines much easier. Took me a few seconds to go down and add another space to a 1700 word document.

Cut and paste into forum post.

Not the most simple of ways, but its easier then what I have been doing.\

Hope this helps.