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MS Word to HTML Checklist

When you write the document:

1. Use plain and simple formatting.
2. Do not use underline except for Hyperlinks, use Bold instead for emphasis.
3. Don not CAPITALIZE titles, or anything that is not an acronym
4. Of course, do not BOLD, UNDERLINE and CAPITALIZE all at the same time either!
5. Limit the use of Italics to short sentences. Italics are harder to read on screen when whole paragraphs are italicized.
6. Do not use font colors, custom fonts or font sizes, centered titles, indented text or any other print style formatting that should be handled by the CSS file of your site.
7. Generally, remember that web pages are not printed pages and that the web has its own style guide. These guidelines are there so that the largest number of people can read web content and so your site looks professional and organized.

To clean a Word document:

• Copy the text from MS Word and paste it in Notepad or any other plain text editor (in Windows, the extension needs to be .txt).
  
• Or do a "save as: text" in MS Word and then copy from there directly in your HTML editor.
• When you paste in your HTML editor, remember to add bold, italic and any formatting as needed after you paste.
• Consult with your web designer regarding any special formatting such as alert boxes, titles, etc. In Joomla your text editor may already have the style you need ready to apply to your text.
• If using Joomla or any other CMS cut and paste:
  • titles
  • bylines
  • dates
• From the article proper, into the relative fields provided by the CMS. Make sure to turn the byline and date display on in the preferences. This will give your pages a consistent appearance.
  

To use Textism:

Save your document as "Web Page (*.htm, *.html)"

Go to Textism.com/wordcleaner

Click on "Browse" and upload your html document

Click on "process"

Copy from the "Cleaned HTML" Text area and paste into your editor's HTML view.

Always remember to check your web page in at least the two major browsers after the work is done.

Refer to the list above for the handling of titles, bylines, etc.