With over 114 million scholarly documents available online, using the Web for research makes sense these days. This is true whether you’re writing a college paper or focusing on a work project.
All of those Web pages, though, are in HTML, and that’s not always the ideal format for collecting and using your research. Many times, you’re better off converting the HTML to DOCX.
That may sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be, and it offers many benefits. Here’s what you need to know about making that switch.
What is HTML?
First, though, it helps to understand what HTML is.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard used to write information designed for display on the web. A web server passes an HTML file to your web browser, and the browser translates that into what you see on the screen.
HTML includes information on how to format the page, such as font, spacing, paragraph breaks, images, etc. It uses tags and special codes to indicate how everything should look.
Trying to read this as straight text is difficult since it’s hard to distinguish the information from the formatting. Luckily the browser does the work for you, so by the end, you only see the relevant information.
What is DOCX?
Before you convert your HTML to DOCX, it helps to also understand DOCX.
If you’ve seen or received a document written in Microsoft Word, the chances are good that it has a .docx extension, although it wasn’t always that way. Before the 2007 edition of Word, the default was to save as .doc.
The change came to support open-source standards. This allows the files to be read by other word processing programs, such as Google Docs. The DOCX files are also smaller and easier to transfer, making them a better choice all around than DOC files.
7 Reasons to Convert HTML to DOCX for Research
As you can see, HTML and DOCX are very different. HTML files are meant for web browsers, while DOCX files are meant for people to read. This leads to the reasons why you would move a file from HTML to DOCX when doing research.
#1 – No Ads
When you’re looking up information online, ads can be very distracting. You’re trying to focus on the details of your work, but you keep seeing information about interesting products and events.
If you convert that information to Word, though, you can get rid of the ads. This helps you stay focused and on-task.
#2 – No Paywalls
Additionally, if you need to go back to your research information again, once it’s saved in Word, you don’t need to worry about possible paywalls. While some online information is free, not all of it is, and you may only be able to access information once or twice for free.
#3 – Readability
You can certainly get past ads and firewalls by saving the website information as an HTML file, but it’s not very readable. Most people aren’t going to want to wade through the tags used in HTML to find the relevant information – including you.
Word, on the other hand, is much easier to read because it’s designed for people. You won’t need to look at all the details of how it’s formatted and can focus on the information.
#4 – Formatting
Another challenge with HTML is that even if you open the file in a browser, where it’s easier to read, it can look different depending on what browser you use. You might notice this yourself if you visit a site in Google Chrome and then again in Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer.
This happens because browsers interpret incoming information differently. For example, you might have different default fonts and slight differences in formatting. This is especially true if you have an older version of the browser.
This doesn’t cause huge problems when doing research, but it can be confusing if someone reading your paper gets a different view of the information when looking at the HTML file from a different browser.
#5 – Editing
One of the biggest benefits to using Word, though, is that it allows editing. Not that you want to edit your sources for research, but you might want to highlight things, or make comments. You can easily do that in Word, but you can’t in the HTML file.
#6 – Compile Information
You may also find that it’s easiest to have all your research materials in one place. This isn’t very easy to do with HTML, but it’s easy with Microsoft Word.
Using Word, you can put all your reference materials together, separating them by section and headings as needed. This will make it much easier for you to refer back to when working on your paper or project.
#7 – Citations
Referencing online information is becoming very common. You can even find instructions on the best way to cite online resources.
While you would still want to point to the online link, it may also be helpful to provide the information as a Word document, especially if you have multiple citations. That allows you to reference a page number to more specifically indicate where you got the information.
What About DOCX to HTML?
You may also be wondering, would you ever go the opposite direction and convert DOCX to HTML?
You might, but from a research perspective, it wouldn’t be the best approach. This conversion is mostly used if you’re working on a page for a website and prefer to draft it in Word, then get it online.
Moving from HTML to DOCX
Doing research for school or work often happens online, but the research doesn’t need to stay there.
Changing the information from HTML to DOCX has many benefits. You can more easily comment on relevant sections and compile your information together, without worrying about formatting differences, ads, or paywalls.
Even better, doing the conversion is very simple. You can easily find tools to turn that HTML text into a Word document with just a couple of clicks.
Are you doing some research now and want to get the HTML information into Word? Check out our free HTML to DOCX converter.