When I use Microsoft Word to make web pages, why is the resulting code so long?

When using Microsoft Word to create a web page, the Save as Web Page option does not output pure HTML, but instead adds special tags designed for Microsoft Office, as well as XML (Extensible Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) tags. These can almost double the length of your document.

Microsoft provides an HTML filter to strip Office-specific code from HTML documents, creating much cleaner coding. To use it, from the File menu (most versions of Word) or Office Button menu (Word 2007 only), select Save As... to save your document. Then, under "Save as type:", select Web Page, Filtered.

Note: No HTML filter currently exists for Macintosh versions of Word.

After you have installed the filter, whenever you use Word to convert your file to HTML, use Export to HTML instead of Save as Web Page. You can also use Export to HTML to convert existing files. This can be helpful if you have old files containing Office-specific code you wish to clean up.

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