# Word doc to SDMB?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [October 5, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599 "2004-10-05T03:05:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/1 "2004-10-05T03:05:40Z")

</div>

I have a Letter to the Editor I’d like to post here. It’s the best piece I’ve written in years. I wrote it in MS Word, though, and I don’t know the incantations to get from a Word doc to a post in this format. I also have an angry, anonymous reply somebody sent me, but it’s handwritten, and I’ll have to retype it manually.

Is there a simple way to get a Word doc into a “New Thread” form? Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/2 "2004-10-05T03:30:28Z")

</div>

I figured copy and paste would work, but I could well be wrong.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/3 "2004-10-05T03:39:33Z")

</div>

Can you load it into Word and then “Save as…” a plain text file?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/4 "2004-10-05T03:57:51Z")

</div>

> [@JimSox5](#):
>
> I figured copy and paste would work, but I could well be wrong.

Try it out:

This post was cut and pasted from a Word doc.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/5 "2004-10-05T04:00:01Z")

</div>

I have used copy-and-paste to import text into posts from Word, WordPerfect, pdf’s, - just about anything.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/6 "2004-10-05T16:03:36Z")

</div>

Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-doc-to-sdmb/267599/7 "2004-10-05T16:52:17Z")

</div>

Actually you _will_ occasionally get munged characters (usually punctuation, e.g., your apostrophes don,t make it as apostrophes but as commas, or punctuation / special characters will come across as code that can?t be parsed properly and get represented as question marks) if you copy-and-paste from Word. (This varies from one website’s messageboard sw to another, vBulletin is better than some).

The Guaranteed Safe Way is to do a Save As, specify plain text, open in your Text Editor of Choice (Notepad will do), and do your copy-and-paste from there.

Or you could compose your posts in Notepad (or other text editor) to begin with. It’s not like you’re going to be able to retain formatting like paragraphs, tables, bold, italic, etc, anyhow.