Why Word HTML code render incorrectly?

When you save Microsoft Word HTML (HTML code that has been created in Microsoft Word), Microsoft Word adds additional Microsoft Office-specific markup tags that are not typically found in HTML files. This additional code added by Microsoft Word causes problems in many HTML editors because they cannot interpret this Office-specific code. As a result, you may see only part of the HTML render properly, or you may not see anything at all.

The ideal solution is to create your HTML code using a dedicated HTML editing application, such as Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver. If an HTML editor is not available to you, you may be able to convert your Microsoft Word HTML document you created into a usable HTML format. Before you attempt any of the potential solutions below, we recommend you make a back-up copy of your HTML document before you continue.

Filter out Microsoft Word HTML code

If you created the document using Microsoft Word 2000, you may be able to clean out the extra HTML coded by using Microsoft Office 2000's HTML filter tool. This tool can filter out the extra code elements added by Microsoft Word. For more information on this tool, please visit Microsoft's website.

In newer versions of Microsoft Word, there is more than one option for saving HTML files. To choose one of these options, start by going to the file menu within Word and choose "Save as Web Page." A new window will open up. You will see a dropdown box at the bottom of the window that says "Save as Type:". You can choose between two formats: The first option is the standard "Web Page" option. This should be avoided, as it adds the extra Microsoft Word HTML code that is not compatible with most HTML editors. The second option is called "Web Page, Filtered". This will remove all the extra coding that is added by Microsoft Word to keep the web page as clean as possible.

Clean up code with Adobe Dreamweaver

If you've created your HTML document using Microsoft Word, but have Adobe Dreamweaver installed on your computer, you may be able to clean out the extra HTML content using Dreamweaver's "Clean Up Word HTML" command after the affected HTML code has been opened in Dreamweaver. This command is accessible through the main menu, under the "Commands" section (Commands --> Clean Up Word HTML). This option should work with HTML files that have been saved using Microsoft Word '97 and above. Dreamweaver will attempt to automatically configure the feature to match the version of Word that was used to create the HTML document. This sometimes takes several seconds. If this does not work, you can choose the version of Microsoft Word the document was created in by choosing the correct version from the available list. You can then click on the OK button to start the HTML cleanup process. This may take a few moments depending on the size of your Microsoft Word HTML document. For more information on configuring and using the Clean Up Word HTML feature in Dreamweaver, please consult your Dreamweaver documentation.

These steps may vary in newer versions of Microsoft Word and Dreamweaver, but the best rule to keep in mind is that if you can create your email using a dedicated HTML editor, do it! It will save you time converting the email from Word format to a usable HTML format.

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