Stop! Don't Paste into Collage from Microsoft Word.

It seems like such a simple thing – especially with so many people writing in Word these days. Unfortunately, Collage and Word don’t play well with each other. Before you blame Collage, this is actually a Microsoft issue – when you paste from word, Microsoft piggybacks a lot of extra code in the HTML that messes up many programs – including Collage.

 

So you’ve got three options to keep this from happening. (Still want to use Word – skip ahead to option #3)

 

1.Type your text etc. directly into Collage.
 

2.Type your text directly into Word Pad or Notepad and then copy and paste it into Collage. Word Pad and Notepad can be found by clicking on the Start Menu, All programs, and then accessories.

 

 

3.Don’t want to give up writing in Word? Here’s your solution: write everything as you would normally in Word and then copy all of it – select edit and then select all (you can also hit Control + A on your keyboard) – all of the text should then be highlighted.
 

 

 

 

 This is what the page will look like with all of the text highlighted:

 

 

3a. Then click edit and copy (or Control + C) on your keyboard

 

 

 

3b. Now open Word Pad or Notepad (see option #2) and paste the text etc. in from Word. Once inside Word Pad or Notepad select edit and paste (or Control + V on your keyboard).

 

 

 

Pasting the document into Word Pad or Notepad will strip out all of the extra code from Microsoft. **Keep in mind it also will remove any images, as well as bold, underlining or italics, links etc. – that will have to be added after the fact directly in Collage.**
 

Note: Italics is not allowed in Collage – it can break the template, and underlining is used just for links.

 

3c. Next Select all and copy the text etc. from either Word Pad or Notepad similarly to the way you did so in Word:

Select edit and select all (or Control + A on the Keyboard)

 

 

All of the text will be highlighted:

 

 

 

 

Then select Edit and Copy (or Control + C on your Keyboard)

 

 

 

 

 

4.Now open an already created task in Collage or create a new one. Keep in mind that when pasting your new text etc., into an already created page it may keep the formatting that is already there rather than adopting the formatting of your pasted text etc.

For help on how to creating a new page and task check out these blog entries:

http://blog.uml.edu/cms/2009/03/create-new-pages.html

http://blog.uml.edu/cms/2009/06/what-you-can-and-cant-do-in-task.html

 

 

5.Next select the page you want to add this to and paste it in (like in step 3b.)
 

6.Make sure to preview your page afterward!
 

 

 

 

7.Mark your task done and send it along for approval.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Or