Copying from Word table to FP table

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
  • Start date Start date
T

Terry Pinnell

This is really a specific follow-on to my earlier query about the best
way to transfer Word documents to FP. If I have a table in Word and I
copy a long row of cells from it to the clipboard, how can I paste
that as one step into an identically-structured table row in FP 2000
please?

It seems that, whether I choose Paste, or any of the variations of
Paste Special, the data insists on going into only the first cell.

It's beginning to look as if I'd be better off converting the Word doc
to HTM first, despite all the weird code I reacll that it introduces.
 
Try copying the table from Word into Excel. Then, copy from
Excel into Frontpage. If that works, but you find that
you're left with a lot of coding garbage, try using
Dreamweaver and select COMMANDS-->CLEANUP WORD HTML

Regards
 
ai429 said:
Try copying the table from Word into Excel. Then, copy from
Excel into Frontpage. If that works, but you find that
you're left with a lot of coding garbage, try using
Dreamweaver and select COMMANDS-->CLEANUP WORD HTML
Click to expand...

Thanks - I'll try the Excel tip, hadn't thought of that. (Don't have
Dreamweaver.)
 
I'm curious about this, myself.

I've only just started using FP2003 and I understood it was supposed to be
better about filtering out garbage when pasting from other Office apps, but
I'm not seeing it.

I've got a fairly plain table in Word and I'm pasting it directly into FP.
It adds all the MsoNormal stuff as we're used to seeing. Bleh. I'm
stumbling around looking for a tool to clean it up and I'm not seeing any.

The only options available on the Paste Options button (which Jim Buyens
mentioned in your other thread) are:
- Keep Source Formatting
- Keep Text Only

If I use the first, I get all the Mso garbage. If I use the second, I don't
get the table which is the point of this process in the first place.

This is what I get for getting my MVP award so late in the development
cycle. :)

But I think I have a sort-of answer for you. If you first paste your table
into an empty page in FP, then copy that table and paste it into your FP
table, it will match cell for cell instead of pasting the whole thing into
the first cell. I hope that makes sense...

Can anyone else weigh in on the problem of removing the Mso styling?
 
The Excel tip doesn't work very well in my case as it puts each paragraph
into it's own cell.
 
Open the page (after the paste) and use Tools Optimize Html - very carefully
Also see http://sbrenjoy.bizland.com/frontpage/word.htm
--




| I'm curious about this, myself.
|
| I've only just started using FP2003 and I understood it was supposed to be
| better about filtering out garbage when pasting from other Office apps, but
| I'm not seeing it.
|
| I've got a fairly plain table in Word and I'm pasting it directly into FP.
| It adds all the MsoNormal stuff as we're used to seeing. Bleh. I'm
| stumbling around looking for a tool to clean it up and I'm not seeing any.
|
| The only options available on the Paste Options button (which Jim Buyens
| mentioned in your other thread) are:
| - Keep Source Formatting
| - Keep Text Only
|
| If I use the first, I get all the Mso garbage. If I use the second, I don't
| get the table which is the point of this process in the first place.
|
| This is what I get for getting my MVP award so late in the development
| cycle. :)
|
| But I think I have a sort-of answer for you. If you first paste your table
| into an empty page in FP, then copy that table and paste it into your FP
| table, it will match cell for cell instead of pasting the whole thing into
| the first cell. I hope that makes sense...
|
| Can anyone else weigh in on the problem of removing the Mso styling?
|
| --
| Jack Brewster - Microsoft FrontPage MVP
|
|
| | > This is really a specific follow-on to my earlier query about the best
| > way to transfer Word documents to FP. If I have a table in Word and I
| > copy a long row of cells from it to the clipboard, how can I paste
| > that as one step into an identically-structured table row in FP 2000
| > please?
| >
| > It seems that, whether I choose Paste, or any of the variations of
| > Paste Special, the data insists on going into only the first cell.
| >
| > It's beginning to look as if I'd be better off converting the Word doc
| > to HTM first, despite all the weird code I reacll that it introduces.
| >
| > --
| > Terry, West Sussex, UK
| >
|
|
 
That same procedure appears to work well with Word 2002 & FP 2002 as well.
Of course, there's no Optimize HTML tool, but this gets me past 90 percent
of the work I was looking at when pasting.

Bullets don't seem to travel well regardless of the FP version, but I can
live with that.

As usual, my hat is off to you Stefan. Thanks!
 
That Office filter will only install if you have Office 2000 installed.
That really stinks because I used to use and recommend this tool, too.

What really stinks is, if you install Office 2000, then install the tool,
then install an Office upgrade, like XP, the tool will work just fine. The
problem is in the installer.
 
I have been editing in MS Word and dragging the files from Windows Explorer
onto my page in FP for years, and I don't have any problems. The two
applications work together just fine. My tables come out okay and so do my
bulleted lists. Maybe a little extra formatting to get just the look I want.

I haven't found all the tons and tons of extra coding I am supposed to get
from doing this. Maybe there are a few extra tags, but if a paragraph begins
with <p> and ends with </p> with no tags in between, I guess that's okay.
The pages come out looking just the way I want them to look. Of course, I
have not checked them out on all the different browsers, but if there is a
problem, my readers write in. I have a very simple layout (KISS), and mostly
I get compliments.

I sometimes get a few extra tags when I instert a table in the middle of
text after the page is mostly laid out, but that has nothing to do with MS
Word, and I can easily deal with it.

So I don't understand why people keep saying that it is a problem. I'm no
html expert, and if anyone wants to check my coding, the site is
www.dipika.org. Every single article was originally edited in Word and then
dragged onto a page in FP. Of course, this does not include the site map or
the links page or the articles that simply consist of a photo.

I dunno. Maybe I should check it out on one of these check-your-coding
sites, but I don't know where they are.

Wally S
 
Wally S said:
I have been editing in MS Word and dragging the files from Windows Explorer
onto my page in FP for years, and I don't have any problems. The two
applications work together just fine. My tables come out okay and so do my
bulleted lists. Maybe a little extra formatting to get just the look I want.

I haven't found all the tons and tons of extra coding I am supposed to get
from doing this. Maybe there are a few extra tags, but if a paragraph begins
with <p> and ends with </p> with no tags in between, I guess that's okay.
The pages come out looking just the way I want them to look. Of course, I
have not checked them out on all the different browsers, but if there is a
problem, my readers write in. I have a very simple layout (KISS), and mostly
I get compliments.

I sometimes get a few extra tags when I instert a table in the middle of
text after the page is mostly laid out, but that has nothing to do with MS
Word, and I can easily deal with it.

So I don't understand why people keep saying that it is a problem. I'm no
html expert, and if anyone wants to check my coding, the site is
www.dipika.org. Every single article was originally edited in Word and then
dragged onto a page in FP. Of course, this does not include the site map or
the links page or the articles that simply consist of a photo.

I dunno. Maybe I should check it out on one of these check-your-coding
sites, but I don't know where they are.
Click to expand...

Wally: Your Word text is obviously 'cleaner' than mine! I think the
success rate must depend on how simple or complex the Word source is.

As an example of *my* results with the document under discussion in
the other thread, 'Transferring Word docs to FP', see
http://www.cupod-mentoring.com/swprojectdoc_copy.htm
The two links at the bottom of that page open a couple of GIFs,
respectively showing the appearance (roughly) with Show All on or off.
And that's just 'plain' text; the Word tables ended up in a real mess.

I'm just reading that page Stefan recommended, which seems to bear out
the unpredictable nature of such transfers.
http://sbrenjoy.bizland.com/frontpage/word.htm
 
Maybe you're doing stuff in Word that would be better done in FP. I limit my
word files to text, although I sometimes include tables or lists, but I do
all the links, pasting in of photos, etc, in FP. One nice thing about doing
this is that you can format all your italics, bold, etc in Word and you will
keep it all if you drag the file in. I don't do any html work in Word. I use
Word for what Word is good at, and I use FP for what FP is good at.

Wally S
 
Wally S said:
Maybe you're doing stuff in Word that would be better done in FP.
Click to expand...

As mentioned in original post of parallel thread, the Word files are
from client, not me.
 
Stefan B Rusynko said:
Open the page (after the paste) and use Tools Optimize Html - very carefully
Also see http://sbrenjoy.bizland.com/frontpage/word.htm
Click to expand...

Stefan: I stepped through your instructions at that page but didn't
get anything like the cleanish table I was hoping for.

I converted the 3-column 'References' table at the end of

http://www.cupod-mentoring.com/simonoriginal.doc ,

pasted it near the end of

http://www.cupod-mentoring.com/swprojectdoc_copy.htm

and converted back from text to the table you see there.

As there was a sprinkling of commas in the original table, I used tab
as the delimiter. Initially looked promising in Word, as each cell
appeared nicely separated. But after pasting into my FP page and
reconverting, as you see the result is very strange. In particular,
doesn't reconstruct as a simple 3-col table. Seems that a lot of MS
Office code still gets through to FP.

Any thoughts or further suggestions please
 
I also get stuff like this from outside, but I clean it up before I post it.
I remove any inset pictures and put them in again after I lay out the page.
I remove any formatting that's likely to give me trouble. It's
time-consuming, though, and maybe when you find a formula that works, you
could tell your clients how to send you the files.

Wally S
 
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