Creating a Correspondence or Messaging Template Using Microsoft Word
Many customers prefer to create newsletters, correspondence, and messaging templates in Microsoft Word before converting to HTML by pasting them into the HTML Editor (described in the Customizing a Correspondence Template or Messaging Template Help topic).
Use the Paste from Word feature to paste content developed in Word into the HTML Editor to preserve basic formatting. The feature also removes incompatible-with-W3C-standards HTML code to prevent unexpected results or errors.
To paste a Word document into the HTML Editor:
- Open the word document.
- Press <CTRL>-A to select the entire document (this is important to make sure that you copy all formatting).
- Press <CTRL>-C to copy.
- In the HTML Editor, click the Paste from Word button.
Important: The Abila netFORUM Pro HTML Editor is not desktop publishing software. Keep in mind that Word adds formatting code to documents to style and make them look good. When this formatting is removed, documents might not look like the original. After pasting the content from Word into the HTML Editor, you might need to reformat it manually (for example, the display elements such as images, tables, backgrounds) in order to achieve the look that you want.
While this is good practice, Word might add its own tags to the HTML code that can then be problematic when viewing the subsequent mailing in an e-mail or Web site program. Elements and font formatting may be off, images may not appear where you intended them to be, and so forth.
To avoid a headache, the HTML Editor has a feature called Paste from Word. This feature removes most of the office tags that Word automatically adds to the HTML code and attempts to ensure that your templates are as close as you design them as possible when distributed. Please keep in mind that while improvements have been made to this functionality, it is not intended to be the ultimate "fix" for this type of conversion. As noted above, Microsoft Word adds a lot of formatting code to documents to style and make them look good. When this formatting is removed, they may not appear like the original as a result. This is because Word is not a real HTML Editor but a document editor. As a result, netFORUM's tool removes unintended formatting codes added by Word but you may need to reformat them manually (namely the display elements such as images, tables, backgrounds, and so forth that are MS Office added tags that do not convert and display well in a standard HTML document).
To paste a document into the HTML Editor of your template and remove the Word tags at the same time:
- Open your Word document
- Press <CTRL>-A to select the entire document (this is important to make sure that you copy all formatting)
- Press <CTRL>-C to copy
- On the HTML Editor interface in eMarketing or in the Web Site Editor if you are pasting Web Site content, use the Paste from Word button instead of <CTRL>-V as you normally would — this will paste from Microsoft Word everything that you just copied and remove all special tags that are not HTML compliant.
Using the “Paste from Word” functionality will remove the special tags from Microsoft and will ensure that your customers will be able to view the email/web page as you intended. For example, a blurb on new functionality updates has been pasted into a template for release to new customers with the Paste from Word button. Notice that it has relatively few HTML tags, namely a few <FONT> and <B> old tags.
On the other hand, notice what using <CTRL>-V inserts into your text when pasting from Word instead of using the provided button. Not pasting into the HTML Editor correctly will cause you to see these types of tags:
If you’re familiar with HTML, you know that tags such as <v:f eqn> or attributes like o:spt are not found in any of your HTML books. To prevent unexpected results or errors, prevent this by using the Paste from Word button provided in netFORUM when creating HTML content such as for templates or Web Site content.
Note: An unsubscribe Footer to your templates and message is automatically added by netFORUM.