How to Remove MS Word MSO Tags from HTML

MSO tags are the formatting tags that Word includes in your HTML file when you create and save it in Microsoft Word. It increases the size of your file and makes codes difficult to read. MS Word allows you to save your Web page as a filtered HTML file that strips away a lot of extra codes from your file. However, it does not remove MSO tags completely. You can use online tools to produce cleaner HTML code for your website.

Instructions

Save as Filtered Web Page

1. Click the "Office" button, and select "Save As" and "Other Formats." The "Save As" window opens.

2. Select "Web Page, Filtered" from the "Save as type" drop-down list.

3. Name your file, add an "html" or "htm" file extension to it and click "Save." A warning displays, indicating Office-specific tags will be removed when you save your file in this format. Click "Yes" to proceed.

Word HTML Cleaner or Textism

1. Remove the MSO tags from your Word file online at Word HTML Cleaner or Textism (see Resources). To use the online cleaner at Word HTML Cleaner, scroll to the bottom of the Web page.

2. Click the "Browse" button. A dialog box appears. Find and open the HTML file that contains MSO tags. Click "Process."

3. Highlight the cleaned HTML code that is generated. To retrieve the HTML code at Textism, click the "Cleaned HTML" tab.

4. Right-click and select "Copy" from the list.

5. Open a new document in your favorite text editor, such as Notepad, WordPad or TextEdit. To paste the code you copied into the page, select "Edit" and "Paste" from the menu.

6. Click "File" and "Save" from the menu to open the "Save As" dialog box.

7. Type in the HTML file name of the file you cleaned. Place the file name in quotes, and click "Save."

HTML Tidy

1. Remove the MSO tags from your Word file online at W3C (see Resources). Click the "Validate by File Upload" option.

2. Click the "Browse" button, and double-click the HTML file you want to clean.

3. Click "Show Source" and check "Clean up Markup with HTML Tidy." Click the "Check" button to remove MSO tags from the file.

4. Scroll to the bottom of your page, and highlight the cleaned-up HTML code.

5. Repeat Steps 4 through 7 of Section 2, "Word HTML Cleaner or Textism," to copy, paste and save the updated code.

Tips & Warnings

• According to Microsoft Online, you may not be able to edit some Office features when you remove MSO tags from an HTML file.

References

• Word HTML Cleaner: Clean Word HTML Files
• Textism: Word HTML Cleaner: Clean Word HTML Files
• Validator: HTML Tidy
• Microsoft Office: About Office-Specific Markup

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Word HTML Cleaner: Clean Word HTML Files
• Textism: Word HTML Cleaner: Clean Word HTML Files
• Validator: HTML Tidy