Keep Word Formatting and Paste to GMail
 

Keep Word Formatting and Paste to GMail

In this tutorial, we address the occasional need to compose email with more professional and organized formatting. One could argue that formatting options already exist for GMail -- but keep in mind that these are rarely used, and true email drafting and formatting usually happens in Microsoft Word!

This tutorial aims to help you in fighting with paragraph indents, bullets and numbering, and even the simple boldface, underline, and italics font display that is often times lost or altered when pasting from Word to GMail.

Below is a screenshot of a sample Word document
http://i58.tinypic.com/2r6yvpl.png

Doing a simple copy this text..
http://i57.tinypic.com/21lv7sz.png


And now before clicking the Paste command..
**Notice that there is an option in Google Chrome to "Paste as Plain Text". As anyone would, seeing that option tells us that it would most likely copy and paste only the text contents of the clipboard. -- And indeed it does!

However, seeing that we do not specifically use this option to paste content, we assume that the Copy-Paste would go well..
http://i60.tinypic.com/2db71ih.png


And now, instant copy-paste formatting disaster!
http://i58.tinypic.com/15g6oaq.png


Notice the formatting elements that have been lost:

FONT!
One could argue that there is no universal font -- except maybe for Times New Roman, Arial, and Comic Sans!
Except for the fact that, for different operating systems and version of MS Office, these fonts do not display exactly the same. Some fonts, even though they are very much common and familiar, are not even named the same in versions of Windows and MAC operating systems.
http://i59.tinypic.com/4idftg.png


PARAGRAPH or NEXT-LINE BREAKS!
Paragraph or next-line or simply most kinds of next line spacing is lost or altered.
http://i60.tinypic.com/2rqeh39.png


BULLETS and NUMBERING!
Its not the easiest thing to mess with Word's bullet and auto-number formatting. Sometimes its best to keep things in plain bullets instead of numbers to better accommodate new line inserts. But doing a simple copy paste from Word to your email isn't that simple when bullet spacing and indention is lost.
http://i62.tinypic.com/30asx81.png


One can indeed adapt to using the builtin GMail formatting tools..
http://i61.tinypic.com/21bgh1.png
But this is only useful if you are composing first and not pasting.


============================================

Now onto the solution!

On Microsoft Word, click File -- Save As -- and select the type as Web Page / HTM
http://i57.tinypic.com/mx23yr.png

Use Google Chrome to open the created .HTM file
http://i60.tinypic.com/x3h9gn.png

Google Chrome seems to have kept most of the Word formatting! Lets continue on!
http://i57.tinypic.com/2i20l8n.png

On Google Chrome, copy the text..
http://i58.tinypic.com/15zjgis.png

And finally, paste into GMail!
http://i61.tinypic.com/deblnl.png


There you have it!

Comparing the original Word formatting..
http://i58.tinypic.com/2r6yvpl.png


With our GMail output in Google Chrome
http://i61.tinypic.com/deblnl.png

:)