If you’re a regular blogger, you’ll know that creating an efficient process for drafting, editing, and publishing your posts is crucial. Microsoft Word and similar platforms are still widely used by bloggers at the drafting stage due, in large part, to the familiar tools, offline access, and comprehensive editing features they offer. However, there’s a fly in the ointment when it comes to transferring the draft to the blog’s publishing platform, such as WordPress. Happily, there are now new tools available that have simplified the process of transferring a draft from Word to WordPress.
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The Problems with Copying from Word to WordPress
It’s the bane of the blogger’s life: even when you manage to copy a draft from Word to WordPress, the formatting shows up all wrong, meaning you have to spend valuable time sorting out the issues.
Some of the most common problems include the appearance of extra spaces in the text editor, a result of the incorporation of rogue code, and mishandled <code> tags. You may also find that the paragraph tabs are muddled up in your draft when you switch the editor view – and sure, you could switch back to the main editor view to sort this out, but this, in turn, can cause additional formatting issues. Nightmare!
Resolving the Issues
If you want to copy from Word to WordPress without the formatting problems that this entails, then you have two options: you can manually attempt to resolve things or use one of the modern new tools on the market to sort it out for you, hassle-free.
The Manual Method
So, once you’ve copied your blog draft from Word to the WordPress platform and the formatting gremlins have appeared, you can switch to WordPress’s text editor mode to manually clean the content and get everything looking great again.
Be prepared, though, this is likely to be a slow process, and you’ll need to have at least a basic knowledge of HTML.
Or You Could Use Innovative New Tools to Speed Up the Process
Using a great rich text editor is an easy way to copy your draft from Word to WordPress hassle-free and without those formatting nasties that can make the process so frustrating and time-consuming. There are several rich text editors on the market, and it’s important to choose the best one for your blogging needs.
Ideally, look for a rich text editor created specifically to support blogging. It should offer a plug-in that’s been designed to enable users to transfer copy from Word to WordPress (or similar blogging platforms) and have this copy appear in WordPress perfectly formatted, so there’s no need to spend time sorting it out as part of your process.
Once you’ve brought your new rich text editor on board, you’ll just need to make sure that your WordPress account is signed up for a Premium Subscription in order to use these time-saving plug-ins.
More Tips to Streamline Your Blogging Workflow
Document Workflow
Documenting your content workflow is a great first step to streamlining the process. You may be surprised at the tweaks you’ll be able to make simply by seeing the stages clearly laid out. Create this in the way that works best for you – a diagram with arrows and symbols for task dependencies, a flow chart, or a storyboard-type document: whatever makes sense and gives you the best overview of the entire process, from the initial draft to the publication of the blog post.
Set Sub-Deadlines
As well as your major content deadlines, be sure to set several sub-deadlines along the way, along with key contact points, when you can check in to ensure that everything is going to plan and is on schedule. This is an effective way of avoiding delays and bottlenecks and gives you the opportunity to resolve issues fast. And when it comes to the main deadline? Aim to have your post ready at least a week before publication so you have plenty of time for any last-minute changes or amendments needed.
Simplify Your Editing Process
As well as sorting out the formatting issues that come with copying a Word draft into WordPress, there are other steps you can take to make your editing process run more smoothly. Simply reviewing your content in sections, rather than all at once, is a much more effective way to pick up errors and spot where improvements could be made. Once you’ve checked the actual content of each section, next go back through for grammatical errors, typos, etc.
Create an editing checklist that you, or a member of your team, will work through every time you check new content to ensure consistency and make sure nothing slips through the net.
Streamlining Your Blogging Workflow: The Takeaway
Taking a little time to think about the effectiveness of your current blogging workflow will be time well spent, helping you to identify where the processes can be sped up, improved, or made slicker. Use the guide above to help you copy drafts from Word to WordPress hassle-free and for other handy tips to get your workflow running like a well-oiled content machine!
