What is the best way to insert source code examples into a Microsoft Word document?

Question

I have to write some documents that will include source code examples. Some of the examples will be written from the IDE, and others would be written in place. My examples are primarily in Java.

As someone who is used to LaTeX, doing this in Word is extremely painful. However, I am bound to Word for this. The only options I have seen are:

1. Write or copy into the document, then use a fixed type font, arrange formatting and hope that Word didn't uppercase stuff for you. Needless to say, this looks like crap.
2. Copy and paste screenshots of source code from the IDE. At least I keep colors. However, if I change my font size, I'm screwed. I'm also screwed across page boundaries. And let's admit it, Word is not great at managing multiple images on a document.
3. Write HTML (not really an option here)

Is there some better (and ideally portable) way to do this? Is there at least some sort of verbatim style similar to the LaTeX environment? Is there at least some pretty printer that I could copy-and-paste as RTF?

Answer 1

I absolutely hate and despise working for free for Microsoft, given how after all those billions of dollars they STILL do not to have proper guides about stuff like this with screenshots on their damn website.

Anyways, here is a quick guide in Word 2010, using Notepad++ for syntax coloring, and a TextBox which can be captioned:

1. Choose Insert / Text Box / Simple Text Box
   
2. A default text box is inserted
   
3. Switch to NPP, choose the language for syntax coloring of your code, go to Plugins / NPPExport / Copy RTF to clipboard
   
4. Switch back to word, and paste into the text box - it may be too small ...
   
5. ... so you may have to change its size
   
6. Having selected the text box, right-click on it, then choose Insert Caption ...
   
7. In the Caption menu, if you don't have one already, click New Label, and set the new label to "Code", click OK ...
   
8. ... then in the Caption dialog, switch the label to Code, and hit OK
   
9. Finally, type your caption in the newly created caption box
   

Answer 2

I recently came across this post and found some useful hints. However, I ended up using an entirely different approach which suited my needs. I am sharing the approach and my reasoning of why I chose this approach. The post is longer than I would have liked, but I believe screenshots are always helpful. Hopefully, the answer would be useful to someone.

My requirements were the following:

1. Add code snippets to a word document, with syntax highlighting for easier visibility and differentiation of code and other text.
2. Code snippet shall be inline with other text.
3. Code snippet shall break across pages smoothly without any extra effort.
4. Code snippet shall have a nice border.
5. Code snippet shall have spell-check disabled.

My Approach is as listed below:

1. Use external tool to achieve syntax highlighting requirement 1 above. One could use notepad plus plus as described above. However, I use the tool present here - http://www.planetb.ca/syntax-highlight-word. This gives me the option to use line number, as well as very nice syntax highlighting (Please use Google Chrome for this step, because syntax highlight is not copied when using Mozilla Firefox, as also pointed out by couple of user comments). Steps to achieve syntax highlighting are listed below:
   • Open the website provided above in chrome and Copy the code snippet in the text area. I will be using a sample XML to demonstrate this (XML sample from here - http://www.service-architecture.com/articles/object-oriented-databases/xml_file_for_complex_data.html).
   • Select the language from drop down menu.
   • Click "Show Highlighted" button. It will open a new tab, with syntax-highlighted code snippet, in this case the XML sample we chose. See image below for example.
   • To Turn off the line numbers, inspect the page in chrome. Then, under styles, deselect the "margin" property in ".dp-highlighter ol", as shown in the image below. If you want to keep the line numbers, go to next step.
   • Select the syntax-highlighted code and click copy. Now your code is ready to be pasted into Microsoft word. Thanks to this blog for providing this information - http://idratherbewriting.com/2013/04/04/adding-syntax-highlighting-to-code-examples-online-and-in-microsoft-word/.

2. To achieve requirements 2, 3 and 4 above, use table in Microsoft word, to insert the code snippet. Steps are listed below:

   • Insert a table with single column.
   • Paste the copied text from step 1. in the table column. I have kept the line numbers to show how well this works with Microsoft word.
   • Apply border, as you like. I have used size 1pt. Resulting Microsoft word snippet will appear as shown in screenshot below. Note how nicely it breaks across the page - NO extra effort needed to manage this, which you would face if inserting "OpenDocument Text" object or if using "Simple TextBox".

3. To achieve requirement 5, follow the steps below:

   • Select the entire table or the text.
   • Go to Review tab. Under Language, choose "Proofing Language". A new pop-up will be presented.
   • Select "Do not check spelling or grammar". Then, click OK.
   • Resulting text has spell-check disabled. Final result is shown in the image below and meets all the requirements.

Please provide if you have any feedback or improvements or run into any issues with the approach.

Answer 3

You need to define a style in your Word document and use that for source code. I usually have a style called "Code" which has a monospaced font in a small point size, fixed size tabs, single line spacing, no before/after paragraph spacing, etc. You only need to define this style once and then reuse it. You paste in your source code and apply the "Code" style to it.

Note that some editors (e.g. Xcode on the Mac) add RTF as well as text to the clipboard when copying/pasting between applications - Word recognises RTF and helpfully retains the formatting, syntax colouring, etc.

Source code in Xcode:

Copied and pasted to Word:

(Note: it's a good idea to disable spell-checking in your "Code" style in Word.)

Answer 4

It kind of depends on the IDE. Both Visual Studio and Eclipse, for example, will allow you to copy as RTF and paste into Word, keeping all your formatting.

Notepad++ has a plugin called "NppExport" (comes pre-installed) that allows you to copy to RTF, though I don't care much for Notepad++'s syntax highlighting (it'd definitely be passable though). What it does do is support dozens of languages, whereas the aforementioned IDEs are limited to a handful each (without other plug-ins).

Answer 5

Use this - http://hilite.me/

hilite.me converts your code snippets into pretty-printed HTML format, easily embeddable into blog posts, emails and websites.

How: Just copy the source code to the left pane, select the language and the color scheme, and click "Highlight!". The HTML from the right pane can now be pasted to your blog or email, no external CSS or Javascript files are required.

For Microsoft Word document: Copy the the content from the Preview section and paste to your Microsoft Word document.

3 sections : Source Code , HTML and Preview

Answer 6

This is related to this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2653406/931265 Creating an object solved all of my problems.

Insert > Object > Opendocument Text

This will open a document window, paste your text, format it how you want, and close it.

The result is a figure. Right click the object, and select 'add a caption'.

You can now make cross references, create a table of figures.

Answer 7

On a Mac I find this solution with vim to be wonderful:

https://github.com/zerowidth/vim-copy-as-rtf

Answer 8

If you are still looking for an simple way to add code snippets.

you can easily go to [Insert] > [Object] > [Opendocument Text] > paste your code > Save and Close.

You could also put this into a macro and add it to your easy access bar.

notes:

• This will only take up to one page of code.
• Your Code will not be autocorrected.
• You can only interact with it by double-clicking it.

Answer 9

There is an easy way if you want simple code formatting.

1. Open word> Insert tab> click on "Get Add-ins"
2. search for "Content mixer" 3.click on "Add"

Then content mixer add will open automatically and you can copy paste your code in there and click on "Insert" to insert it in word doc.

Answer 10

These answers look outdated and quite tedious compared to the web add-in solution; which is available for products since Office 2013.

I'm using Easy Code Formatter, which allows you to codify the text in-place. It also gives you line-numbering options, highlighting, different styles and the styles are open sourced here: https://github.com/armhil/easy-code-formatter-styles so you could extend the styling yourself. To install - open Microsoft Word, go to Insert Tab / click "Get Add-ins" and search for "Easy Code Formatter"

Answer 11

You can use Open Xml Sdk for this. If you have the code in html with color and formatting. You can use altchunks to add it to the word documents. Refer this post Add HTML String to OpenXML (*.docx) Document Hope this helps!

Answer 12

This is what i did.

End results :

https://stackoverflow.com/a/25092977/1161594

Answer 13

You can using Plugin Syntax Highlight in Ms.Word https://store.office.com/syntax-highlighter-WA104315019.aspx?assetid=WA104315019 . i follow that step and it's work

Answer 14

In Word, it is possible to paste code that uses color to differentiate comments from code using "Paste Keep Source Formatting." However, if you use the pasted code to create a new style, Word automatically strips the color coded text and changes them to be black (or whatever the auto default color is). Since applying a style is the best way to ensure compliance with document format requirements, Word is not very useful for documenting software programs. Unfortunately, I don't recall Open Office being any better. The best work-around is to use the default simple text box.

Answer 15

I have tried all your methods, but they didn't work for me, in fact I have created an easier method using MS Word Tables.

Pros:

1. More beautiful
2. Easier to manage & more consistent
3. Are less prone to problems
4. No need for external plugins or MS Word micro coding.
5. Easier to handle by simple users (such as myself).

Cons: It will not maintain code colouring although someone could improve my trick.

Steps:

1. Insert a 3x3 table, in my case I always make the total width of the table equals the free page's width (3 rows minimum to test the tables style).

2. Use invisible borders ("No Borders" option), and activate "View Gridlines" option. it should have this aspect. Be ware that those lines are for you to see the table's grid, and the will not be printed.

3. Make the adjustments to cells' spacing and columns' width to get the aspect you like. (You will have to get in "Table Properties" for fine tuning).

4. Create a "Paragraph Style" with the name of "Code" just for your code snippets (check https://stackoverflow.com/a/25092977/8533804 to get the idea, you don't have to follow all of it)

5. Create another "Paragraph Style" with the name of "Code_numberline" that will be based upon the previous created style.

6. In the newly created "Code_numberline" add the numbering style that you like (this will automate line numbering).

7. Apply "Code_numberline" to the first column, and "Code" to the 3 column.

8. Add a fill in the middle column.

9. Save that table style and enjoy!