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How do I copy and paste from Word into an e-mail without losing my formatting?

goodsuspectgoodsuspect
edited June 2015 in Writing
Can anyone help?
I want to enter a competition that asks for entries to be put in the body of an e-mail, not as an attachment. When I try to copy and paste it loses some of the indents for my paragraphs. Is there any way to stop this happening?

Comments

  • LizLiz
    Can you not indent them in the body?

    On mac we have the same tools as are in Word or any word processor at the top of the email so can change formatting easily, but I don't know about PCs.
  • BetsieBetsie
    I've just done that very thing goodsuspect. I've checked my 'sent' box and the indents are as I typed them in Word.

    Are you doing your indents using the tab key or do you go across the screen with the space bar? I've used the tab key and my formatting has stayed in place on the e-mail.
  • Baggy BooksBaggy Books
    The method of creating an email can affect it.

    I can copy something into my online email body and lose the formatting, but within Outlook it's fine.
  • CarolCarol
    It's one of those bothersome things that happen.
  • Phots MollPhots Moll
    I've had the same thing happen. I can add them back in one by one, but don't know how to stop it happening.
  • goodsuspectgoodsuspect
    I use tabs for paragraphs. I've tried to fix it on the actual e-mail but it doesn't work properly. Maybe I should e-mail it to my other address and see how it comes up. Thanks!
  • danfangodanfango
    It will all depend on how you're accessing your email. If you're using Outlook and have Word set as your email editor (I think this is the default setting if you have MS Office on your computer) there will be no problem as the formatting will carry across from Word to Outlook.

    If you access your email via an internet browser, the formatting might be influenced by both the browser itself and the email provider (gmail, Yahoo, hotmail, etc), and probably a few other factors too. I think to be completely sure of transferring the formatting from Word to an internet mail service, you would need to save the document as an html file and paste that in to your message.

    One thing to bear in mind is that if they're asking for the story to be sent in in the body of an email they may be planning to read the entries on-screen and so it might be more appropriate to send it in 'screen format', i.e. with blank lines between paragraphs. Might it be worth checking with the organisers as to which they'd prefer, before you go to too much trouble recreating the 'ideal' format?
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