How do you display code snippets in MS Word preserving format and syntax highlighting?

user_13054 0
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Does anyone know a way to display code in Microsoft Word documents that preserves coloring and formatting? Preferably, the method would also be unobtrusive and easy to update.

I have tried to include code as regular text which looks awful and gets in the way when editing regular text. I have also tried inserting objects, a WordPad document and Text Box, into the document then putting the code inside those objects. The code looks much better and is easier to avoid while editing the rest of the text. However, these objects can only span one page which makes editing a nightmare when several pages of code need to be added.

Lastly, I know that there are much better editors/formats that have no problem handling this but I am stuck working with MS word.

ms-word code-formatting
43 Answers

Download and install Notepad++ and do the following:

  1. Paste your code in the window;

  2. Select the programming language from the language menu;

  3. Select the text to copy;

  4. Right click and select Plugin commands -> Copy Text with Syntax Highlighting;

  5. Paste it into MS Word and you are good to go!

Update 29/06/2013:

Notepad++ has a plugin called "NppExport" (comes pre-installed) that allows you to copy to RTF, HTML and ALL. It permits dozens of languages, whereas the aforementioned IDEs are limited to a handful each (without other plug-ins).

I use Copy all formats to clipboard and "paste as HTML" in MS word.

screenshot from notepad++

user_5466520

I type my code in Visual Studio, and then copy-paste into word. it preserves the colors.

Jimmy_44350

Maybe this is overly simple, but have you tried pasting in your code and setting the font on it to Courier New?

user_475290

Try defining a style called 'code' and make it use a small fixed width font, it should look better then.

Use CTRL+SPACEBAR to reset style.

user_424040

I'm using Easy Code Formatter. It's also an Office add-in. It allows you to select the coding style / and has a quick formatting button. Pretty neat.

enter image description here

user_15147800

The best way I found is by using the table.

Create a table with 1x1. Then copy the code and paste it.
If you're using the desktop app then it will inherit the code editor theme color and paste it accordingly, else you can change the table style to any color.

enter image description here

UPDATE ------------------

From Word 2021, you can directly paste the code and it will preserve the formatting. No need to create the table. Thank you @RdC1965 for mentioning this.

user_97904160
Colby_Africa_471640

In my experience copy-paste from eclipse and Notepad++ works directly with word.

For some reason I had a problem with a file that didn't preserve coloring. I made a new .java file, copy-paste code to that, then copy-paste to word and it worked...

As the other guys said, create a new paragraph style. What I do is use mono-spaced font like courier new, small size close to 8px for fonts, single spaced with no space between paragraphs, make tab stops small (0.5cm,1cm,..,5cm), put a simple line border around the text and disable grammar checks. That way i achieved the line braking of eclipse so I don't have to do anything more.

Hope I helped ;)

user_2842630

You can use VS code to keep code format and highlighting. Directly copy and paste code from VS.enter image description here

user_41662850

Answer for people trying to resolve this issue in 2019:

Most answers to this question are outdated by now. I wish there was a way to reinspect old questions and answers every now and then!

The method I found for this question that works with Office 365 and its associated programs can be found here.

user_58517590

you can simply use this Add-in on any office program.

Go to insert tab, then Get Add-ins, and search for Easy Syntax Highlighter

It supports

  • 185 languages and 89 themes.

  • Automatic language detection.

  • Multi-language code highlighting.

user_121735310

Use a monospaced font like Lucida Console, which comes with Windows. If you cut/paste from Visual Studio or something that supports syntax highlighting, you can often preserve the colour scheme of the syntax highlighter.

Nigel_Campbell_154010

Copying into Eclipse and paste it in Word is also another option.

user_5240890

If you are using Intellij IDEA, just copy the code from the IDE and paste it in the word document.

user_20979740

A web site for coloration with lots of languages. http://hilite.me/

You can host one yourself since it is open source. The code is on github.

user_10429340

There really isn't a clean way to do it, and it could still look fishy based on your exact style settings.

What you could try to do is to first run a code-to-HTML conversion (there are many programs that do that), and then try to open up the HTML file with word, that might hopefully provide you with the formatted and pretty code, and then copy and paste it into your document.

user_230720

I have created an easier method using tables, as they are easier to create, manage, and more consistent (with the possibility to save the table's style inside the document itself), but I couldn't find a better way for code colouring scheme, sorry for that.

Steps:

  1. Create a 3x3 table.

  2. Select the table, and make its borders invisible ("No Borders" option), and activate "View Gridlines" option. enter image description here

  3. Make the adjustments to cells' spacing and columns' widths to get the desired aspect. (You will have to get in "Table Properties" for fine tuning). enter image description here

  4. Create a "Paragraph Style" with the name of "Code" just for your code snippets (as mentioned in https://stackoverflow.com/a/25092977/8533804)

  5. Create another "Paragraph Style" with the name of "Code_numberline" that will be based upon the previous created style, but this you will add a numbering line in its definition (this will automate line numbering). enter image description here

  6. Apply "Code_numberline" to the first column, and "Code" to the 3 column. enter image description here

  7. Add a fill in the middle column. enter image description here

  8. Save that table style and enjoy!

user_85338040

The best presentation for code in documents is in a fixed-width font (as it should appear in an IDE), with either a faint, shaded background or a light border to distinguish the block from other text.

Rob_35420
user_12726740

I've read and tried all the posts and I would like to give an overview of all the solutions. The best way is depending on your requirements. If there are only short snippets that are not longer than a page then go with Insert Object. If the code is longer than one page go with RTF Formatting.

Insert Textbox

  • No page break possible
  • Spell check available
  • Formatting can be ruined very quickly
  • In a document with thousands of pages Word 2016 started to make problems. At some point Word always crashed while trying to insert a new Textbox.

Insert Object > Document

  • No page break possible
  • No spell check
  • Formatting and content stays safe

RTF Formatting

Or any other wysiwyg-editor/online tool/library to style the code.

Some plug-ins/add-ons

All down or doesn't work anymore.

user_16198990

A quick approach I use is to use the Snipping Tool (already built in Microsoft tool) with stack overflow's preview.

Once I input my code into an Ask Question box, I then capture the preview and insert it into the MS Word document as a picture.

enter image description here

This above is the result, a picture, (not SO code ) you can put into word.

No worries about formatting, grammar checks, or downloading new software or add-ins!

user_84366170

Simplest solution, for me atleast, is to paste your code into the document, highlight it, then navigate to:

home -> styles -> << click drop down arrow by styles >> -> code

This has the advantage that the code is now searchable within the document (unlike gargamel's solution), as well as being able to format code that is multiple pages.

user_54286090

Simply right click and paste using the "Keep Source Formatting" option. I do this almost everyday to document my work. Further, you can set the 'default paste' for pasting from various soures in File/Options/Advanced/Cut,CopyPaste. Also useful: enable "Show paste options" in the same section of Word Options.

Note that all of the text properties from your Code Editor's theme (colors, fonts, etc.) will be added to the Stylesheet in your Word doc, so I would recommend that you not make any changes directly to the pasted text as that will add clutter to your stylesheet and subsequent pastes will not match. It will be to your great advantage to do a quick study on using 'Styles' in Word (which are actually CSS). They are very powerful. Using Word's Stylesheet you can make global changes to the pasted text, but it will probably cause subsequent pasted text to add new styles.

user_17243520

You can paste your code into LINQPad. Then copy from LINQPad into MS Word. LINQPad supports following programming languages: C#, VB, SQL, ESQL and F#

user_5566490

Hilite doesn't seem to be mentioned yet in the answers, so: Hilite supports lots of languages (20+), can be used online also via API, and is on Github (so you can clone, modify, and run it on your own if you don't trust the online service). The online version can also be adjusted to one's needs via CSS rules.

I just found it some minutes ago since I needed a tool for copying xQuery into Word, but couldn't find a proper tool for doing so. The source program is baseX and for some reason, its formatting could not be transmitted to Word (also not via Keep format etc. when pasting). Also, many of the given answers are now, i.e. 06/2019, not working anymore or do not support xQuery. Hilite, however, did the job quite well.

Edit: a code block is not part of the result, unfortunatelly, just the highlighting. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing and adjusting the result by adding a block around is still less work than formating every single line by hand

user_74249790
  • What I do is I use Google Backup and Sync and put the docx file in the folder that syncs with Google Drive.
  • Then Open the file in chrome as google drive has functionality to parse docx file.
  • Then run this plugin https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/code_blocks/100740430168 which formats the code in different languages with good theme.
  • Once done save it and open the docx file in the system once it is synced.
user_16795410
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