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Junk Microsoft Word Code

As explained elsewhere, you should NOT use Word for any of the work related to the your web publishing. Word, along with other Microsoft products, even Internet Explorer, etc., tends to leave behind all kinds of "junk code" which can really mess up your webpage. A typical example of this junk code looks like this:

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]-->

You can end up with this junk code if you even just cut and paste from Word into your Composer webpage.

If you have got junk Word code in your webpage, the only safe way to get rid of it is to salvage your text and from scratch. If there is visible junk code on the page, that also means there is probably a lot of invisible junk code too. The best way to fix that is just to do the page again, after cleaning up the text. Here is how to do that:

  1. View your webpage in a browser. You should get online, and open the webpage.
  2. Open the Composer program. You need to open the Composer program, with a blank page ready to edit.
  3. Highlight your webpage contents. Use your mouse (or Control-A) to highlight all the text on the webpage. Copy the text.
  4. Open Notepad. Use the Start button, choose Accessories, and then choose Notepad to open the Notepad program.
  5. Paste into Notepad, and copy. Go to the blank Notepad document, and paste in what you copied from your webpage. Now highlight the text in Notepad, and copy it again.
  6. Paste into Composer and delete junk. You can safely paste the text from Notepad into your Composer webpage. Notice that you have lost the images, links and format (bold, italics, etc.) - but it is now easy to delete the junk Word code. You should also delete the "Disclaimer" at the bottom of the page if it is visible there.
  7. Edit the page in Composer. Recreate your links, re-insert the images, and format the page (colors, bold, italics, etc.).
  8. Save and publish. Using the Save-File As command, save your new, clean file with the name of the old file (this will replace the old file). Then publish the new version of the file.

That should fix the problem! And to avoid having to go through this again, do NOT use Word to create webpages. Word is a word processor that creates text for printed documents. It is a disaster for creating webpages.

Using Notepad to safely copy and paste . Notepad is a free little word processor included in your Windows operating system. If for some reason you really think you have to cut-and-paste from Word, do this via Notepad in order to delete the junk code before you paste into your webpage. Here's how to do that:

  1. Open Composer. Start the Composer program and open the webpage you want to work on.
  2. Open Notepad. Use the Start button, choose Accessories, and then choose Notepad to open the Notepad program.
  3. Open Word and copy. Open your Word document, and use your mouse to highlight and then copy the selected text.
  4. Paste into Notepad, and copy. Go to the blank Notepad document, and paste in what you copied from Word. Now highlight the text in Notepad, and copy it again. You will lose a lot of the formatting (bold, italics, etc.) - but at least it will be free of the junk Word code also.
  5. Paste into Composer . You can safely paste the text from Notepad into your Composer webpage.

© Copyrighted by Laura Gibbs. Kaleidoscope images created with Kaleidoscope Painter. Last updated: August 20, 2008 9:46 AM .