Looking for a way to clean up the bloated Microsoft code what copying/pasting content from Word or Excel into a knowledge article

jaspiranti · ‎01-24-2022

We continue to struggle with the formatting when creating knowledge articles. Whether using the import feature or copy/paste from Word, it's a real pain to work with. Conflicts between any code ServiceNow is using and whatever Microsoft is bringing often creates such a mess that it's easier simply to rewrite the article from scratch.

I personally use Notepad++ for all my tweaking and cleanup efforts, then I copy/paste into SN with a pretty good degree of success. This is not an option for our content owners/writers and I'm not comfortable with using some random online "text cleaner" (of which none of those are great either).

Would welcome ANY ideas, thoughts, or paths you may have taken to solve for this.

Kim27 · ‎01-24-2022

Hi, you may need to ask your admin team to add the "clear formatting" icon to your editing tool bar. It looks like this:

You will still need to go in and renumber the steps, but at least it gives you a clean start. I will often turn off the numbering in the Word version before I move it into SN.

I copy and pasted a sample of text from Word.

Highlight everything, click on the "clear formatting" icon and it clears the formatting. I pulled the code before and after:

Before:

After

I hope this helps!

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jaspiranti · ‎01-24-2022

Thank you Kim. I just checked and that feature is already enabled! Can't believe I've never discovered.

This does put us in a MUCH better position! Thanks again. 🙂

Kim27 · ‎01-24-2022

Yay! I'm so glad it's already there for you to use!

andrewfb · ‎07-19-2023

I have been a Project manager implementing ServiceNow for multiple clients since Aspen Version in 2011 - I can't remember when the import Word functionality became available and every single client that I've had has complained about the manual work that needs to be done before and after importing from a Word document
Personally I think it should be removed as a piece of functionality from the platform because from a clients perspective the are being sold "hey you can just import all your knowledge articles from word" and not highlighting to them the headaches it will cause them and all the manual work they need to do

I have been advising clients for years now not to use this as its a bigger headache than what they actually expect
My solution to them is if all your Knowledge is in Sharepoint as an example as a quick GoLive solution- create a basic article with a hyperlink to that source and over time you can create them in ServiceNow using the create New article properly
that's my rant 😁

Erik24 · ‎07-19-2023

I totally agree, the import function looks good on paper but results are often less than pleasing when it comes to formatting and accessibility/readability. It usually creates a lot of dead white space with footers and headers etc, negatively impacting the user experience.

As our authors and collaborators are not very fond of the SN editor, lack HTML skills, and need to collaborate with people not working in ServiceNow, we created a very simple Word template with minimal formatting to copy/paste and keep formatting in the SN tinyMCE editor. Usually it doesn't need any additional work, though it sometimes messes up list numbers. We tried using the Word Add-in, but it was too buggy to move to production, so sadly had to shelve that until improved.

Lauren Methena · ‎07-19-2023

Yes! We geared our whole style guide based on what our folks could do in ServiceNow without HTML skills. It was successful. I was able to train folks not versed in communications, content management, ServiceNow, nor HTML in how to become pretty efficient in the system. LOL!