Pasting information from MS Word

When pasting information into the description or requirements fields from another application such as MS-Word, there can be formatting codes embedded in the text that may not render well when viewed in any or all browsers.

The MS-Word export to the clipboard contains lot of HTML-Comments (eg. the Stylesheet definition can be very large, depending on the fonts and styles used inside the word document). The paste process is controlled entirely by the Operating System and by the browsers. The editor is not allowed to interfere in this process much (of course there are some minor differences between browsers).

Editor Toolbars

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On the Editor Toolbar there are three paste options available in the description and requirements fields to handle these circumstances.

Paste from MS-Word Button

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  • This technique will attempt to maintain Word's formatting but will discard anything not recognized by the browsers.This function is useful, but it still leaves embedded font information and specialized formatting that can cause problems for some browser.

Paste as Plain Text

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  • This technique will remove ALL formatting so you will have to apply formatting to the pasted text.
  • This will replace paragraph tags with double-break tags.
  • Paste as Plain Text will also remove all hyperlinks.


Paste (Also Control + V)

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  • This technique will add the text and ALL formatting, but this may not render well in a specific browser.


When in doubt, paste as plain text and apply some simple formatting.

See Also