In this guide, we will explore all the various ways for you to convert Word documents to HTML. We are experts at converting Microsoft Word, PDF, and other documents to HTML and other formats with over 20 years of experience. We have several tools to help you convert and process your documents to clean HTML:
If you have MS Word installed you can use the built-in save to HTML option. All you need to do is:
Easy eh? Not so fast there are two significant issues with using Word to save your HTML, the file sizes are large and the quality of the HTML is not very good.
If you create a simple test document like the one shown below, then save it to HTML you will see that the resulting web page has more than 100 lines of code.
If we use Upload file and convert the same file with one of our tools like WordToHTML.net you will get around 40 lines of code when full page mode is enabled, which is less than half of the size of the Word version. If you copy and paste content from an MS Word document into Visual Editor you will get even 19 lines of code, which is less than one-fourth of the size of the Word version. You can try this experiment yourself or view our test files:
This example is for a simple document, for complex files the file size difference can be even larger.
Apart from practical issues like server space web pages with lots of code that are longer to download. Google penalizes sites with slow download times, and more importantly, users are impatient. According to research nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that has not loaded within 3 seconds. In the modern internet, speed is the most important factor.
The other big issue with using Word is it creates overly complex non-standard HTML. Now to be fair to Microsoft, we imagine that the main reason they do this is to try to keep the layout of your files as similar as possible, but it does create issues. In our example file, if we look at how Word handles the list items, this is the code it generates:
� Apples
A lot of code just to display the word apple on a list. You will also notice that Word does not use the standard HTML Li and ul list tags. It uses CSS to format the lists, if you strip out this CSS the list becomes normal text. In comparison, this is the code generated with WordToHTML.net when you upload a document and convert it.
If you just paste content from the MS Word test file into Visual Editor and choose to keep formatting you will be left with this very clean code:
So you can see if you want the cleanest HTML possible you need to use a proper tool to convert your Word files to HTML.
Here are our recommendations based on your various needs.
Our online WordToHTML.net web app lets you paste your text into the Visual Editor and your text gets converted to HTML instantly. It is super easy to use and free for basic features.
For users who need more, our WordToHTML.net Pro version is only $15 a month and gives you the ability to upload Word (DOCX/DOC), PDF, and other file types and have them converted to HTML. You convert HTML documents back to other formats too (HTML to DOCX or PDF etc). You also can save your files, create HTML conversion/processing templates, and have more cleanup features. You can try the Pro version demo for free.
We have a Windows desktop product called Doc Converter Pro. It is an easy way for you to convert your Word, PDF, and other file formats to HTML. You can convert one file or batch-convert hundreds of files in one go. You can also create custom conversion templates to give you full control over your conversions.
The advantage of a desktop application is it will be faster if you are converting lots of files also it is a good option if your files are private as nothing will leave your system.
Our web app version of Doc Converter Pro Online gives you all the great features of our desktop version, but as it is web-based, you can work from any computer and any browser. You can also share accounts with your team.
How does Doc Converter Pro Web App differ from WordToHTML.net? Doc Converter Pro is designed for batch converting lots of documents whereas WordToHTML.net is better for cleaning up pasted text or converting single documents.
No problem. We have a Web API version of Doc Converter Pro Online. With a few lines of code, we take all the hard work out of converting your documents. Try our free trial here…
If you need more advice, feel free to contact us anytime. We can advise you on the best strategy for your needs.
