Since I joined the Graphics.net team, I’ve seen some stellar sites go down the drain with days of handing them off to the client. To the point where I would be embarrassed to see them in our portfolio. Most of the problems we’ve been having are outlined above, in your article or other comments. Pasting from Word is a big one as all sorts of nastiness tags along with the copy.

I’ve been meaning to look into customizing the default WordPress WYSIWYG editor for some time now. Mostly to add elements like headings, but I see WYSIWYM has them out of the box. Very nice. Now to see what’s involved in integrating it with WordPress.

@Carlos Eduardo: Indeed, it will be a good project to keep an eye on.

@beth: I can absolutely agree — is it something that should be accepted as ‘the way it is’? Or do you feel a more aggressive approach should be taken on the part of the developer?

I’ll try WYMeditor to know more about it :)

I like to limit tag usage to strong, links, a couple of header elements and ul’s. Let CSS take care of the styling (as God intended). If the user is likely to need tables, you can enable them as well.

Images get a class assigned (I like to make a left, right and centered option for my users), and you’re done.

It’s all about limiting the users options to what he/she actually needs.

If all else fails, “wash” the code serverside.

I’ve also noticed that end users love to paste copy from word, retaining font tags, bold, italics and other such ugliness. There is usually a “paste from word”-function, so remember to instruct your end users to, uhm, use it.