Import from Word vs Paste from Word comparison

The CKEditor 5 WYSIWYG editor offers a simpler Paste from Word plugin, which allows you to paste content from Microsoft Word into your editor and maintain the original structure and formatting. There are, however, significant differences between these two solutions.

# Paste From Word

The paste from Word feature allows you to paste content from Microsoft Word into your CKEditor 5 WYSIWYG editor and maintain the original structure and formatting. After creating a document in Microsoft Word you can simply copy it to CKEditor 5 and retain basic text styling, heading levels, links, lists, tables and images – as long as these features are supported by the editor itself.

• Suitable for small documents and for use cases in which only parts of the document are selected and copied.
• Relies on OS Clipboard HTML, which limits the number of features that can be supported.
• Preserves the original DOCX formatting that was selected and copied by hand.
• Simple, intuitive, but cannot be used to automate migration process of many Word documents via REST API.

This operation is fast and easy, but can only be done “by hand”.

# Import from Word

The Import from Word service can be automated and does not need the presence of the WYSIWYG editor, nor the human supervision to convert files. Compared to Paste from Word, Import can work with any content formatting and is not limited by features supported by the editor.

• Allows for converting large documents into HTML that can be easily imported to CKEditor 5 and other tools.
• Operates directly on XML, which includes more information about the document and Word instance settings.
• Available as a CKEditor 5 plugin and as a REST API for a direct server-to-server conversion.
• Available both as a SaaS service and as an On-Premises solution.
• Suitable for migration of the whole database of Word documents to HTML via a REST API service.
• Perfect solution for more advanced documents that need to be edited or displayed in the browser.
• Supports collaboration features like track changes and comments out of the box.

# Features comparison

The following tables compare the features of the Paste from Word CKEditor 5 plugin and the Import from Word feature. For more detailed Import from Word features overview, please refer to the content formatting guide.

# Collaboration features

Feature name	Paste	Import
Comments	❌	✅
Comments - images	❌	✅
Comments - table cells	❌	✅
Track Changes - text insertion	❌	✅
Track Changes - text deletion	❌	✅
Track Changes - move text	❌	✅
Track Changes - images	❌	✅
Track Changes - tables	❌	⚠
Track Changes - table text	❌	✅
Track Changes - table rows	❌	⚠
Track Changes - table cells	❌	⚠
Track Changes - lists	❌	⚠
Track Changes - list text	❌	✅
Track Changes - list items	❌	⚠
Track Changes - text formatting	❌	⚠

⚠ Import: Track Changes for unsupported features will preserve the original content of the author’s suggestion. However, they will not be recognized as proper Track Changes suggestions. As an example, if a user adds a table using Track Changes, the table will be output in HTML, but it will not be marked as a suggestion. That limitation is going to be fixed soon, with upcoming Import From Word releases.

# Inline formatting

Feature name	Paste	Import
Font color	✅	✅
Font background	✅	✅
Font size	✅	✅
Font family	✅	✅
Bold	✅	✅
Italics	✅	✅
Underline	✅	✅
Underline custom	❌	⚠️
Strike-through	✅	✅
Subscript	✅	✅
Superscript	✅	✅
Link	✅	✅
Soft line break	✅	✅
Small caps	❌	✅
All caps	❌	✅
Letter spacing	⚠️	✅
Font stretching	❌	✅
Hidden text	⚠️	✅

• ⚠️ Import: Custom underline styles are converted to the basic <u> element.
• ⚠️ Paste: Letter spacing and hidden text are only supported with the General HTML support feature enabled.

# Paragraphs

Feature name	Paste	Import
Text alignment	✅	✅
Indentation	✅	✅
First line indentation	⚠️	✅
Hanging indentation	⚠️	✅
Line height	⚠️	✅
Paragraph spacing	⚠️	✅
Paragraph borders	⚠️	✅
Background color	⚠️	✅

• ⚠️ Paste: First line indentation / Hanging indentation / Line height / Paragraph spacing / Paragraph borders are only supported with the General HTML support feature enabled.

# Headings

Feature name	Paste	Import
Built-in heading styles	✅	✅
Preservation of heading formatting	❌	✅
Custom outline level	❌	✅

# Lists

Feature name	Paste	Import
Ordered lists	✅	✅
Unordered lists	✅	✅
Nested lists	✅	✅
Custom list markers	❌	️❌
Ordered list language-specific markers	❌	✅️
Custom start number	✅	✅
Different start number in the middle	❌	✅
Multi-level list	❌	✅

# Tables

Feature name	Paste	Import
Table width	✅	✅
Cell/column width	✅	✅
Cell/row height	✅	✅
Cell merging	✅	✅
Cell padding	✅	✅
Cell spacing	✅	✅
Cell’s horizontal alignment	✅	✅
Cell’s vertical alignment	✅	✅
Table background color	✅	✅
Cell background color	✅	✅
Table border style	✅	✅
Table border color	✅	✅
Cell border style	✅	✅
Cell border color	✅	✅
Table header	✅	✅
Nested tables	✅	✅
Table alignment/floating	✅	✅
Table caption	⚠️	⚠️

• ⚠️ Table caption is converted to styled (only Import) paragraph.

# Images

Feature name	Paste	Import
Embedded images	✅	✅
External images	✅	✅
Image link	✅	✅
Image alternative text	✅	✅
Image height	❌	✅
Image width	❌	✅
Image alignment	✅	✅
Absolutely positioned images	⚠️	⚠️
Image caption	⚠️	⚠️

• ⚠️ Absolutely positioned images are retained, but their original position is lost.
• ⚠️ Image caption is converted to a styled (Import only) paragraph.

# Page breaks

Feature name	Paste	Import
Normal page break	✅	✅
Page break before style	❌	✅

# Horizontal lines

Feature name	Paste	Import
Horizontal line	✅	✅

# Word Styles

Feature name	Paste	Import
Built-in styles	❌	✅
Format styles	❌	✅
Font styles	❌	✅
Paragraph styles	❌	✅
Border styles	❌	✅
Numbering styles	✅	✅

# Default styles

Default styles requires enabling config.default_styles configuration option, both for CKEditor 5 Import from Word plugin and REST API.

Feature name	Paste	Import
Format styles	⚠️	✅
Font styles	⚠️	✅
Paragraph styles	⚠️	✅

• ⚠️ Paste: Document default styles are partially supported, but can’t be disabled / enabled on purpose.

# Sections

Feature name	Paste	Import
Document margins	❌	✅
Document size	❌	✅
Multi-sectioned document	❌	❌
Section columns	❌	❌
Headers and footers	❌	❌

• ⚠️ Import: Multi-sectioned document and section columns are currently not supported.

# Complex objects

Feature name	Paste	Import
Table of Contents	⚠️	⚠️
Form objects	⚠️	⚠️

• ⚠️ Paste: Table of Contents text only is preserved, but the structure and styling is lost.
• ⚠️ Import: Content of a table of contents is preserved, but it does not support content bookmarks.
• ⚠️ Form objects: text and styling is retained only.

# Technical details

To better understand the differences between these two products, it is worth learning how both features work on a technical level. In the case of Paste From Word, the editor uses the operating system’s clipboard, which is fed with Word content in HTML upon copying it from the document. That HTML is delivered by the Word application itself and includes the essential formatting of the document. When the user pastes something from the Word document, CKEditor 5 cleans that HTML up and makes it semantically correct, so it can be consumed by the editor. However, that operation has its own limitations, as CKEditor 5 is only able to understand as much content, as it gets from the clipboard and depends entirely on the clipboard implementation of the Microsoft Word application.

The Import from Word feature does not have this limitation. As it has a direct access to the document, it is able to retrieve as much information from the document, as Word itself. Therefore, it is possible to support things like collaboration features, document settings, and other, which would normally not be available when operating on clipboard content only. We are no longer limited by the MS Word application and thanks to that, Import from Word produces a more advanced HTML than Paste from Word.