Free tool
Clean up text pasted from Word
Pasted straight from Word or Google Docs, a text drags along its fonts, colours, margins and hundreds of lines of hidden code. Paste it here: only the structure stays, ready to go into WordPress or a newsletter.
Paste your text here
Cleaning happens in your browser: the text never leaves your computer.
For WordPress
Copy, then paste into the block editor: each heading, paragraph, list and table becomes a block.
Preview
HTML code
For a “Custom HTML” block, the classic editor's Text tab or a newsletter.
What is kept, what is removed
Kept
The structure
Headings (as H2 to H4), paragraphs, bold, italics, bulleted and numbered lists (including Word's fake lists), links, simple tables, superscript.
Your site's theme handles the look.
Removed
The formatting
Fonts, sizes, colours, margins, Mso classes, o:p tags, Google Docs wrappers, empty paragraphs, stacked line breaks, surplus non-breaking spaces.
Hence the difference in code size.
To redo
The images
Images pasted from Word point to your computer, and those from Google Docs to temporary addresses. They are removed.
Add them in WordPress with the Image block, with alt text.
Why bother
Formatting pasted into WordPress overrides your theme: one paragraph in Calibri 11, another in Arial grey, lists that are really indented paragraphs, and headings that are just enlarged bold text. Screen readers and Google then see no structure, and the page gets heavier with every paste.
A tip for the future: in Word and Google Docs, use the Heading 1, Heading 2 styles and the list buttons rather than manual formatting. Everything else follows.
About headings
In WordPress, the page title is already the level 1 heading. If your document uses Heading 1, all headings are shifted down one level (1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3). Levels deeper than 4 are brought back to 4: beyond that, a page is usually easier to read if it is split.
