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

Question

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.

Answer 1

Here is the best way, for me, to add code inside word:

1. go to Insert tab, Text section, click object button (it's on the right)
2. choose OpenDocument Text which will open a new embedded word document
3. copy and paste your code from Visual Studio / Eclipse inside this embedded word page
4. save and close

The result looks very nice. Here are the advantages of this method:

• the code keeps its original layout and colors
• the code is separated from the rest of the document, as if it was a picture or a chart
• spelling errors won't be highlighted in the code (this is cool !)

And it takes only few seconds.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

Code Format Addin is now available in Office Addins with Office 365 ! Just select the code and click convert it and it converts the code text to formatted color code with line numbers !!!

Bit Rejoice!

Code Format is available here: https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA104379501?tab=Overview

Answer 4

After reading a lot of related answers, I came across my own solution, which for me is the most suitable one.

Result looks like this:

As you can see, it is the same syntax highlighting like on Stack Overflow which is quite awesome.

Steps to reproduce:

on Stack Overflow

1. Goto Ask Question (preferably with Chrome)
2. Paste Code and add a language tag (e.g. Java) to get syntax hightlighting
3. Copy code from preview

in Word

1. Insert > Table > 1x1
2. Paste code
3. Table Design > Borders > No Border
4. Select code > Edit > Find > Replace
   Search Document ^p (Paragraph Mark) Replace With ^l (Manual Line Break)
   (This is required to remove the gaps between some lines)
5. Select code again > Review > Language > check "Do not check spelling or grammar"
6. Finally add a caption using References > Insert Caption > New Label > name it "Listing" or sth

Sample code thanks to this guy

Answer 5

There is a nice Online Tool for that : http://www.planetb.ca/syntax-highlight-word

Just copy the generated code and paste it in your word editing software. So far I've tried it on MS Word and WPS Writer, works really well. Doesn't play nice with Firefox but works just fine on Chrome (and IE too, but who wants to use that).

One of the main benefits is that, unlike the Code Format Add-In for Word, it does NOT mess with your code, and respects various languages syntax. I tried many other options offered in other answer but I found this one to be the most efficient (quick and really effective).

There is also another onlinz tool quoted in another answer (markup.su) but I find the planetB output more elegant (although less versatile).

Input :

Output :

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

When I've done this, I've made extensive use of styles. It helps a lot.

What I do is create a paragraph style (perhaps called "Code Example" or something like that) which uses a monospaced font, carefully chosen tabs, a very light grey background, a thin black border above and below (that helps visibility a lot) and with spelling turned off. I also make sure that inter-line and inter-paragraph spacing are set right. I then create additional character styles on top (e.g., "Comment", "String", "Keyword", "Function Name Decl", "Variable Name Decl") which I layer on top; those set the color and whether the text is bold/italic. It's then pretty simple to go through and mark up a pasted example as being code and have it come out looking really good, and this is works well for short snippets. Long chunks of code probably should not normally be in something that's going to go on a dead tree. :-)

An advantage of doing it this way is that it is easy to adapt to whatever code you're doing; you don't have to rely on some IDE to figure out whatever is going on for you. (The main problem? Printed pages typically aren't as wide as editor windows so wrapping will suck...)

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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

Answer 10

In case you're like me and are too lazy or in a hurry and don't want to download additional software, you can use http://markup.su/highlighter/. It's very straight forward and supports several highlight themes and many programming languages. In my case I was using Visual Studio Code, which doesn't allow copying with format due to CSS involved in styling (as reported here).

Copy the text from the Preview box and then in Word go to Insert -> Textbox, paste the Preview from the website, highlight all the text, and then disable spell checking for that textbox.

This is what the code looks like finally.

Answer 11

If you are using Sublime Text, you can copy the code from Sublime to MS Word preserving the syntax highlighting.

Install the package called SublimeHighlight.

In Sublime, using your cursor, select the code you want to copy, right click it, select 'copy as rtf', and paste into MS Word.

Answer 12

You can just use PlanetB: http://planetb.ca/syntax-highlight-word

Copy and Past, choose the language and enjoy the result.

Answer 13

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.

Answer 14

The best way what 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 colour.

Answer 15

This is a bit indirect, but it works very nicely. Get LiveWriter and install this plugin:

http://lvildosola.blogspot.com/2007/02/code-snippet-plugin-for-windows-live.html

Insert your code using the plugin into a blog post. Select all and copy it to Word.

It looks great and can include line numbers. It also spans pages decently.

HTH

Colby Africa

Answer 16

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 ;)

Answer 17

Vim has a nifty feature that converts code to HTML format preserving syntax highlighting, font style, background color and even line numbers. Run :TOhtml and vim creates a new buffer containing html markup.

Next, open this html file in a web browser and copy/paste whatever it rendered to Word. Vim tips wiki has more information.

Answer 18

This is the simplest approach I follow. Consider I want to paste java code.

1. I paste the code here so that spaces, tabs and flower brackets are neatly formated http://www.tutorialspoint.com/online_java_formatter.htm

2. Then I paste the code got from step 1 here so that the colors, fonts are added to the code http://markup.su/highlighter/

3. Then paste the preview code got from step 2 to the MS word. Finally it will look like this

Answer 19

You can use VS code to keep code format and highlighting. Directly copy and paste code from VS.

Answer 20

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.

Answer 21

I'm using Word 2010 and I like copying and paste from a github gist. Just remember to keep source formatting!

I then change the font to DejaVu Sans Mono.

You can opt to copy with or without the numbering.

Answer 22

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.

Answer 23

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

Answer 24

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

Answer 25

You can also use SciTE to paste code if you don't want to install heavy IDEs and then download plugins for all the code you're making. Simply choose your language from the language menu, type your code, high-light code, select Edit->Copy as RTF, paste into Word with formatting (default paste).

SciTE supports the following languages but probably has support for others: Abaqus*, Ada, ANS.1 MIB definition files*, APDL, Assembler (NASM, MASM), Asymptote*, AutoIt*, Avenue*, Batch files (MS-DOS), Baan*, Bash*, BlitzBasic*, Bullant*, C/C++/C#, Clarion, cmake*, conf (Apache), CSound, CSS*, D, diff files*, E-Script*, Eiffel*, Erlang*, Flagship (Clipper / XBase), Flash (ActionScript), Fortran*, Forth*, GAP*, Gettext, Haskell, HTML*, HTML with embedded JavaScript, VBScript, PHP and ASP*, Gui4Cli*, IDL - both MSIDL and XPIDL*, INI, properties* and similar, InnoSetup*, Java*, JavaScript*, LISP*, LOT*, Lout*, Lua*, Make, Matlab*, Metapost*, MMIXAL, MSSQL, nnCron, NSIS*, Objective Caml*, Opal, Octave*, Pascal/Delphi*, Perl, most of it except for some ambiguous cases*, PL/M*, Progress*, PostScript*, POV-Ray*, PowerBasic*, PowerShell*, PureBasic*, Python*, R*, Rebol*, Ruby*, Scheme*, scriptol*, Specman E*, Spice, Smalltalk, SQL and PLSQL, TADS3*, TeX and LaTeX, Tcl/Tk*, VB and VBScript*, Verilog*, VHDL*, XML*, YAML*.

Answer 26

I was also looking for it and ended up creating something for my code display. Here's a good way:

• Create a rectangular form and place your text inside.
• Change the font to Consolas and size ~10.
• Change the text font to gray near-black (gray 25%, darker 75%)
• Use darker colors to highlight your text if needed and choose one to be the contour.

Answer 27

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.

Answer 28

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.

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).

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).

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

7. Add a fill in the middle column.

8. Save that table style and enjoy!

Answer 29

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.

Answer 30

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.