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Why does my word processing formatting fall apart on Thunderbird?
I use Mozilla Thunderbird v.2.0.0.21. I deferred to the advice of several brainy tech guys to use it instead of Outlook. And I'm happy with security, speed, etc. However, I'm frustrated with my lack of control over formatting the message. Cutting and pasting word documents result in loss of formatting, including line spacing, fonts, and more. Is there a setting allowing for more refined word processing--or an add-on I can purchase? My tech guys don't see why I care. Thanks.
I’m frustrated.
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Dean,
No, you're not experiencing a bug. As Stephanie said, your MS Word document is not in HTML format. So, you can understand that when you copy and paste from Word 2008 into any HTML editor, you are going to forfeit a large amount of the content Word has let you create.
The best suggestion here has been Stephanie's: Using Word, save the document as "HTML Only". Open up that new HTML file in Firefox - then copy and paste from Firefox into Thunderbird.
It will always be this hard to do. The underlying source of the problem is MS Word, because the conversion from .doc to HTML is done by their software in order to provide interoperability between word processors. Unfortunately, they have put very little effort into making their HTML conversion better.
If you need any proof of what I am saying, you can try to copy-and-paste a heavily formatted word document into any non-microsoft program that is not a word processor. You will see a very similar result every single time. The only part of this process that falls on the receiving end of the copy-and-paste action is cleaning up the disgusting "html" that word produces. It's a couple of gross regular expressions and a soupy XML parser slogging through unclosed tags and vector markup unseen by 99% of viewers.
So - if you really want to see a "patch" for this inability, post in http://getsatisfaction.com/microsoft/, and ask for them to make HTML export work.
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Also, Susan, remember that you can't purchase add-ons for any Mozilla products. You should get used to being given things for free! :)
If you would like to see a huge list of free Thunderbird add-ons, take a look at their add-on gallery:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
I’m happy
3 people say
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Originally, email was strictly unformatted text. Eventually, modern email clients started to provide HTML formatting, but even with that, email doesn't provide the same richness of formatting as a word processor.
Even when formatting carries over correctly into Thunderbird, there may still be issues displaying that formatting in another mail program, because of the wide range of software out there that's used to read and compose email. The more elaborate the formatting, the less likely it's going to come out correctly on the other end. There are even quite a few people still running email clients that can't even view HTML formatting at all.
Outlook does sometime handle word processor formatting better, but it does it in a way that is often incompatible with other programs - sometimes sending the message in RTF or Word format, which relatively few email programs other than Outlook handle correctly.
The best bet is to format your messages in such a way that they will be viewable by a wide audience - the guiding philosophy of "be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you send" really does apply to email.
I’m confident
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This answers the question
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Stephanie--thanks. At least I know I'm not using it incorrectly. I can be conservative, but doubt that business recipients are so forgiving.I'll try saving the Word doc in HTML And I'll give the responses some time before I make the move back to Outlook. That has downsides, but most businesses can handle Word. I do try not to bow to monopoly. -
Inappropriate?Also, something you could try, save your word processor document in HTML first, and see if it handles copying and pasting a little better.
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?Why do I lose the format of my text when I copy from Word 2008 to Thunderbird 2.0.0.21?
I'm running on a new Macbook, 10.5.? and using Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac. I get my post all formatted pretty in Word and do a copy/paste to Thunderbird and all my formatting is gone.
I have the setting to send html under thunderbird>preferences>composition>send options.
I also have the account set to compose in html.
Any thoughts? Is this a bug that will be worked out? Is there some patch or some setting I'm missing?
Thanks
Dean
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Copy and Paste loses Format???.
I’m sad
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Inappropriate?Dean,
No, you're not experiencing a bug. As Stephanie said, your MS Word document is not in HTML format. So, you can understand that when you copy and paste from Word 2008 into any HTML editor, you are going to forfeit a large amount of the content Word has let you create.
The best suggestion here has been Stephanie's: Using Word, save the document as "HTML Only". Open up that new HTML file in Firefox - then copy and paste from Firefox into Thunderbird.
It will always be this hard to do. The underlying source of the problem is MS Word, because the conversion from .doc to HTML is done by their software in order to provide interoperability between word processors. Unfortunately, they have put very little effort into making their HTML conversion better.
If you need any proof of what I am saying, you can try to copy-and-paste a heavily formatted word document into any non-microsoft program that is not a word processor. You will see a very similar result every single time. The only part of this process that falls on the receiving end of the copy-and-paste action is cleaning up the disgusting "html" that word produces. It's a couple of gross regular expressions and a soupy XML parser slogging through unclosed tags and vector markup unseen by 99% of viewers.
So - if you really want to see a "patch" for this inability, post in http://getsatisfaction.com/microsoft/, and ask for them to make HTML export work.
--
Also, Susan, remember that you can't purchase add-ons for any Mozilla products. You should get used to being given things for free! :)
If you would like to see a huge list of free Thunderbird add-ons, take a look at their add-on gallery:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
I’m happy
3 people say
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?How come Thunderbird doesn't preserve the formatting of an .rtf file created in Tex-edit Plus when copying into a message to send?
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Inappropriate?Try dragging the rich textual content from Text-edit into Thunderbird instead of using copy and paste. Alternatively, if you can save the data from Tex-edit out into an HTML file (web page), open that in Firefox and copy from Firefox to Thunderbird.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?developit - I've tried both of your suggestions and the text still appears as "plain" in Thunderbird. When I simply copy the text into Apple Mail it preserves all the .rtf formatting so why can't Thunderbird? Couldn't a menu item under "Edit" saying "Paste WITH formatting" be added?
Also, if I've had 6 emails and begin reading the oldest unread email first and then delete it, why doesn't the cursor move up to the NEXT unread mail instead of going DOWN to the last already-READ mail?
I’m puzzled
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Inappropriate?The editor might actually be stripping things out then. As a last resort, try adding that HTML file as an attachment. You won't see the file, but when you send it, the recipient will see the HTML inline. It's not perfect, but it does get the rich formatting through to your intended recipient.
As far as UI goes, I think you might want to look at the betas of Thunderbird 3. I actually stopped using Thunderbird a little while ago in part due to the number of weird usability quirks like the selection bug you mentioned, though it was largely because I developed my own mail client which I now use.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?Thanks, but I'm still getting this annoying problem with the new betas of Thunderbird too. And adding a few lines of copy-and-pasted rtf text via an attachment does seem a rather clunky way to do things.
Can I ask how I may try out your own Email client? -
Inappropriate?Agree with developit! The best way to solve these problems is to edit in HTML using an HTML editor and copy from the HTML editor into an HTML email. Copying and pasting from a Word Processsor or RTF editor like Microsoft Word, Text Edit will always not work well because it's converting from another non HTML format (designed for word processing NOT the web) to HTML and the conversion always messes things up.
I’m confident
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Inappropriate?With all due respect to those who say we should be using an html editor, or just editing within Thunderbird itself, this is contrary to ease-of-use and open architecture. I know there are those that will cite the evils of MS and Word, however, we know this is not the only cut and paste platform that does not work. If this product were truly open, it would allow the ease to cut and paste from a word document, a open office document, a pages document, a website, ... and maintain formatting similar to the original.
I do respect that this product may not yet be mature enough to provide these capabilities. But in real-world scenarios this is a valid and often used feature that should be supported.
I’m sad and frustrated
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Inappropriate?Dean,
Remember that you're comparing a standalone application to one that actually uses a word processor to compose emails. Microsoft Outlook is the only email client that can accept pasted Word documents without losing any formatting at all - that is because the MS Outlook email composer is Microsoft Word.
I think you may be confused about what "open" means in terms of software. Thunderbird is Open-source, which means anyone (including you!) can access and modify the source code for the application, and each stable release is a milestone reached by the contributors as a collective.
Furthermore, in terms of being "Open", Thunderbird is actually among the best in this area. The rich text email composer in Thunderbird is an implementation of the Mozilla Rich Text Editing API field. The format for these regions has been adopted by all of the major web browsers, and as such is also used in all rich-text capable web-based email clients. Some other email clients make use of the WebKit implementation of the Mozilla Rich Text Editing API. The only email programs you will find that do not use this type of editor are Microsoft's selection, which is because they are the same.
That said, I believe you are seeing an bug in Thunderbird. If you notice, the rich formatting you are pasting into the editor is being converted into a textual interpretation of itself before being inserted into the message - this is not the correct functionality for the default paste operation. There is already a "Paste Without Formatting" option in the Edit and contextual menus, and it would be unnecessary to have such an option if the default paste operation was already to strip out the formatting. This is probably something that should be reported to the appropriate people who are working on Thunderbird.
One final note: you should generally send heavily formatted content as an attachment, regardless of the file type. Many email clients who you may be sending the message to won't be able to display all of the formatting as you designed it to appear.
- Jason
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