Save time when pasting text into your website

It is tempting to copy text directly from a file (for example: MS Word) on your computer and then paste it straight into a website Article.

The problem with adopting this apparently common sense approach is that you will unwittingly copy into your website all the formatting added by the application you were using when you wrote the original text.

This is bad for three reasons:

1. it causes slower page load times - especially important on mobile devices,
2. it breaks the House Style (see below) being implemented across your website by the website template, and
3. it means extra work undoing all this unnecessary and annoying formatting later on!

So what should you do?

Well, some 3rd party content editor extensions designed for use with Joomla! will strip out the formatting from pasted text after you paste it into your website Article.

Being 'old school', we prefer to remove the formatting BEFORE pasting text into an Article.

Read on to find out how we do this.

How we remove existing formatting from text

It is easy to remove formatting from text before copying it and pasting it into your website.

All that is required is a simple TXT file.

Having created an empty TXT file on your computer, follow the steps below:

1. open the TXT file,
2. copy text from the source file (MS Word etc) into the TXT file,
3. copy text from the TXT file into the website Article.

There is no need to save the file before copying.

But if you wish, you can.

And that's it ... job done!

TIP

Don't fall into the trap of thinking a new Text file is a TXT file when you are working on an open document using an editing application (example: Open Office Writer, used in Linux).

Instead, right click on your computer's desktop and select Create New Document > Empty Document (or similar, depending upon operating system).

Alternative Method

You could instead change the  Content Editor panel from WYSIWYG to HTML view when editing an Article.

And then copy text direct from a previously formatted file and paste it into the Article (in HTML view).

Formatting will have been removed when you save and change back to WYSIWYG view.

Note: WYSIWYG = What You See is What You Get.

What about Non-Text Content?

We show how to upload, add and edit images to Articles in our Joomla! User Guide.

Read more: Working with Images.

What is a House Style?

A major benefit of using a Content Management System like Joomla! is that it enables you to style your whole website on one go, using a Template.

This is sometimes called global styling.

You can if you wish override this  global styling when you edit each and every article as you edit your website.

For example: change the Font Family for Headings in a particular Article.

Or change the colour of paragraph text.

This what you might call local styling is extremely time-consuming and not recommended.

If you get a web designer to create a new Template for you at some future date, it will not change the appearance of any content to which you have applied local styling.

You will then have to go through your whole website and change the styling in every such Article.

Ouch!

Read more: What is a Template?