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Thread: How to handle tables copied from Word?

  1. #1

    Question How to handle tables copied from Word?

    Okay, please don't yell at me (ducking, with hands over head). I know it's a terrible, awful, horrible thing to copy/paste from Word (Excel, etc.).

    The students in my college-level computer literacy course create a resume in Word that uses a table to format the content. The text is formatting using both character and paragraph styles.

    They also learn the very basic basics of creating a web site (a small part of one word processing lab). The easiest way for them to get the main content of their resume into a NOF web site is to select the entire table in Word, copy it, and paste it into NOF. Comes in, looks great.

    But... I know that's not the proper way to do things and I would like to show them how to use css to do both the character- and paragraph-level formatting.

    My preference would be a way to paste the table into NOF and remove the two styles (but not any italics) or substitute a css definition for the styles.

    What I would prefer not to do is to create a blank table in NOF and copy/paste unformatted cell by cell. Although the table is usually just 10 or 12 cells, even that little copying/pasting will turn them off forever, I'm afraid.

    Is there a way to copy/paste the table then select all the text in the table and clear the formatting so that the table is maintained? In my experimentation (with NOF 11), seems the only way to keep the table is to either regular paste or paste RTF, but I wasn't able to select the text in the table and clear the text formatting, I had to select text in each cell individually.

    What's the best way to accomplish this task? Should not be complicated or difficult because most of these students have never done any web site work.

    Thanks,

    liz

    P.S. I've waded through the forums as best I could to see if I could gain any insight, I've read tutorials and the user manuals. I want to do this the correct way, as long as it's not too complex.

    Added: Pasting from Word worked fine in NOF 11. Makes NOF 12 barf (ungraceful exit, etc.)

    Paste special as HTML works. Now I have to figure out why my font change to the Site TextObject isn't working, although my new Site styles are working fine.
    Last edited by Liz; 01-06-2011 at 06:09 PM. Reason: additional information

  2. #2
    Senior Member gotFusion's Avatar
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  3. #3

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    Sorry, but not simple, at least not in this case!!! Students will be creating their own web sites, publishing them, etc. I don't want any responsibility for their web sites.

    I'm gradually sorting things out. If I can figure out why my font change in Site TextObject isn't working, I think I'll be home free. It worked fine in NOF 11 so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong in NOF 12.

  4. #4
    Senior Member gotFusion's Avatar
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    OK then it is create a table in Fusion then copy/paste unformatted text from word to Fusion.

    make sure the default paste option is unformatted text otherwise they will end up with a mess.

    http://www.gotfusion.com/tutorials/tut.cfm?itemID=4067

    Or you can just copy paste from weird/word and clean up the mess when you are finished

    http://www.gotfusion.com/tutorials/tut.cfm?itemID=220
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  5. #5

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    I'm going to play with both, although I don't think that pasting unformatted is going to work. I'll lose the table formatting. Pasting as HTML seems to bring it in with the table formatting. I'll look at cleaning up the mess afterwards tutorials.

    BTW, I have used several of your tuturials recently, especially those about backing up to a template. I have included footnotes referencing your tutorials in my materials in hopes that some of the motivated students will use your site as a resource.

  6. #6
    Senior Member gotFusion's Avatar
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    Give direct pasting RTM a shot on a single page, then clean up the rogue code that will be brought in. You may retain the basic table coding. You just have to see what you will end up with through trial and error.

    Thanks for your kind words about my tutorials. Some of them are getting a little long in the tooth and are on the "I gotta get to it" list to be updated for the later versions of the product that have come out. I was looking at some yesterday that are for Fusion 4. The info is good but the graphic examples look nothing like the current product
    NetObjects Fusion Cloud Linux enabled Web Hosting, support + training starts at $14.95
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  7. #7

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    Pasting as HTML and cleaning up the code seems to work. Now I just have to figure out why my textobject change works in NOF 11 and not in NOF 12. Will start a new thread on that one.

    I understand about that "long in the tooth" stuff. Every time there's a new version of Office, I have to rewrite several hundred pages of material. I haven't had much trouble figuring out your tutorials even though some of them are several versions old, and I definitely appreciate the work that you put into them and especially appreciate that you've made them available.

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