What Word to HTML does
Convert a Word document (.docx) into clean, semantic HTML: headings become h1–h6, paragraphs become p, lists become ul and ol, bold and italic become strong and em, tables become real table markup, hyperlinks are kept and images are embedded inline. The output is the kind of HTML you can paste into a CMS, a blog editor, an email template or a static site without the thousands of lines of mso- styling that Word's own “Save as Web Page” produces. Conversion runs in your browser; the document is not uploaded.
Clean HTML vs Word's HTML
| This tool | Word: Save as Web Page | |
|---|---|---|
| A 5-page document | ≈ 10–20 KB of HTML | ≈ 200–500 KB |
| Markup | Semantic tags, no inline styles | Nested spans with mso- styles, conditional comments, VML |
| Styles mapping | Word styles → HTML elements (Heading 1 → h1) | Every run's font, size and colour copied |
| Images | Embedded as data URLs | Separate folder of files |
| Result in a CMS | Inherits the site's stylesheet | Fights the site's stylesheet |
How Word styles are mapped
- Heading 1–6 →
h1–h6; Title →h1. - Normal and other body styles →
p. - List Paragraph with bullets or numbering →
ul/olwithli, nested by indent level. - Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript →
strong,em,u,s,sup,sub. - Tables →
table,tr,td(withcolspanandrowspanfor merged cells). - Hyperlinks →
a href; footnotes → numbered links to a list at the end; images →imgwith base64 data. - Fonts, colours, sizes, alignment and spacing are intentionally not copied — apply them with CSS on the destination.
Documents written with real Word styles convert best. A document where headings were made by manually enlarging and bolding text produces plain paragraphs with strong, since there is no heading style to map.
Common uses
- Publishing an article written in Word to WordPress, Ghost, Medium, Substack or a company CMS.
- Turning a policy, a manual or a FAQ into a web page.
- Building an HTML email body from a document drafted in Word.
- Migrating a library of Word documents into a wiki, a knowledge base or a static site generator (feed the HTML through a Markdown converter if needed).
- Extracting the structure and links of a document for further processing.
After converting
- Open the HTML in a browser to check headings and lists; the file is self-contained.
- Paste into a CMS in its HTML or code view, not the visual editor, to keep the markup intact.
- Images are inline base64, which is fine for a page or two; for a site, upload them as files and replace the sources.
- Use HTML to PDF or Markdown tools on this site if the final target is another format.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my fonts and colours disappear?
By design. The output is semantic HTML meant to take the styling of the page it is placed in. Add CSS on the destination instead of carrying Word's formatting.
My headings came out as paragraphs.
They were formatted manually rather than with Word's Heading styles. Apply Heading 1/2/3 in Word and convert again.
Does it support .doc or .rtf?
No — .docx only. Save as .docx in Word or LibreOffice first.
Are tracked changes included?
The accepted text is used: insertions kept, deletions removed. Accept or reject changes in Word first if you need control.
Where are the headers, footers and comments?
They are outside the main body and are not converted. Footnotes and endnotes are included as a list at the end.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The .docx is converted with mammoth in your browser.