Sometimes I am amazed that I don't notice certain board features for a long time, then suddenly they are obvious, but that is the case here.

Several board members prefer to edit in Microsoft Word. When they copy and paste their composition from Word, the font changes to Times New Roman or whatever True Type font they were using in Word, and a bunch of formatting characters not understood by the board software are inserted. This results in extra characters and little pink smiley faces and and other stuff being inserted where they didn't intend it.

What to do? I have long advised them to paste first into Word Pad, then into the board post. Turns out to be a waste of time. The board software has a formatting removing feature. It is the button in the upper left that has two overlapping letter A's with a red X over them.

Just paste directly from Word, and while the text is still all selected from the paste (or use Ctrl+A to select them if you missed that opportunity), then just click on that button. Voilá! The nasty invisible formatting characters are gone. The button is available in both advanced and quick reply windows. Top of the toolbar, leftmost position.

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/7854/forttingremovalln5.gif

Great info Nick, I quit using word because of all the formatting stuff it was copying over.

Thanks. Yes. Lots of folks have complained about the inconvenience of not having the Word spell checking and grammar checking at their fingertips. I just noticed the fool button today when I was wanting to paste a long post from Word. Don’t know why it never caught my eye before, so I decided to try it.

Worked like a champ. Didn’t remove any carriage returns, so as long as I double-space between paragraphs, all’s well. I haven’t tried indenting for paragraph separation to see if that stays put? Let’s try it here.
This is the test sentence/paragraph.

Nope. Didn't work. It kills the tabs. Looks like tabs and bullets have to be added after removing formatting. Also doesn't work if the text is not selected. That lets you remove formatting only from certain parts, if you so choose.

I habitually use Quick Reply and simply type on the fly. I always was a "first draft" writer. A few typos slip by, but that's fine. I don't need or use smileys or such, anyway.

However, for those who compose otherwise, your tip is excellent, Nick.

I'm like Rocky, I just put it down and TRY to fix it later. Problem is I don't know what to do to fix it. As far as using Word, Pad and all that other stuff, I'm still working on how to post a picture. Not doing well at the either.

Carpe Diem,
Dewbaby

I keep meaning to update the sticky on posting images. I should get it done. No question this advice is only useful to those composing outside the reply windows or pasting text copied from some other source.

I have a Mac and don't have Word or any other Bill Gates stuff. I just use the Quick Reply icon and then, edit and save.... I haven't figured out what all those things are in "Go Advanced" section.

Thanks for the tip Nick! I used to paste from word all of the time for the spell checking tool (I'm a hibitually bad speller). I had to quit when the server was overhauled a couple of months ago. Now people won't have to sift throught the mispelled words anymore.

(I know the server has a spell check feature but I think you have to dowload it)

Thanks again for the tip.

I'll add another tip to Nicks fine information. When you guys are making a long post break it up with some paragraphs. Nothing harder to read than 30 lines of typing all in one bunch.

Spacing for both characters and paragraphs often becomes an issue with MB software when you use a composition editor. A couple years ago I figured out that using a blank email message text block eliminates all the issues. Compose in the message section, F7 runs spell checker, copy & paste to any MB message block with no hassles.