Kage LabHow to draft a grant application in Word and paste it into an online portal
Online grant portals are a poor place to write. They time out, they have no spell check, and your colleagues can't comment. Most experienced grant writers draft in Word and move the answers across at the end. Here's how to do it without the usual paste problems.
Step 1: Get all the questions first
- Look for the funder's guidelines or application questions as a PDF or Word file – many programs publish them so you can prepare offline.
- If not, open the portal and step through every page, copying each question and its limit (words or characters) into your document. Some portals have a Preview or Print option that shows the whole form at once.
- Note which questions are drop-downs, tick boxes or uploads – you'll answer those directly in the portal.
Step 2: Set up the Word document
- Put each question in as a Heading (Home → Styles → Heading 2), with the limit underneath, e.g. Max 2,000 characters.
- Write your answer under it in plain paragraphs.
- Use the Navigation pane (View → Navigation pane) to jump between questions.
- Share it with colleagues and use comments and Track Changes as normal.
Step 3: Stay inside the limits
Select one answer and look at Review → Word Count. Portals almost always count characters (with spaces), and many count each line break as one or two characters too.
- Aim for 2–3% under the limit to allow for line breaks and the portal's own counting.
- Word limits are usually counted by spaces – hyphenated words and "e.g." can count differently than you expect.
Step 4: Paste cleanly
- Copy an answer from Word.
- Click in the portal's box and press Ctrl+Shift+V (⌘+Shift+V on a Mac) to paste as plain text. This stops hidden Word formatting coming across.
- Check the box's counter. If the portal cut off the end of your text, shorten it in Word and paste again – don't edit in the portal, or your Word copy goes out of date.
- Press Save after every few answers.
| Problem after pasting | Fix |
|---|---|
| Curly quotes or dashes show as ? or odd symbols | In Word, File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options → AutoFormat As You Type, untick "Straight quotes with smart quotes", then retype them – or find and replace them before copying. |
| Bullet points disappear | Most portal boxes are plain text. Use a hyphen and a space at the start of each line instead of Word bullets. |
| Bold, italics or headings are lost | Expected in plain-text boxes. Use short paragraphs and clear first sentences instead. |
| Text over the limit is cut off silently | Some portals truncate without warning. Always read the last line of each answer after pasting. |
Step 5: Before you submit
- Use the portal's Review or Preview page to read every answer one last time.
- Save a copy of what you submitted (see keeping a copy of a submitted form).
Skip the copying with FormHop Pro
If you write a lot of applications, FormHop can do steps 1 and 4 for you:
- Open the form and click Export to Word (on a multi-page form, click Add page to draft on each page first). You get a .docx with every question and its limit, plus a grey [FH-…] reference line under each one – keep those lines.
- Write your answers in Word, Google Docs, Pages or LibreOffice and save as .docx.
- Back on the form, click Fill from Word draft and choose the file. The preview flags any answer over its limit. Click Fill the form.
- Check everything and submit it yourself – FormHop never presses submit.
Word drafts are part of FormHop Pro (A$19 a year or A$29 once). Every install includes 3 free Pro tries, and each try covers one form however many times you export or fill it – enough to draft a whole application before you decide. The autosave and restore features are free.
FormHop turns a web form into a Word draft with every question and limit, then fills your answers back in. It never submits for you, and nothing leaves your computer. See how FormHop works · try the practice form.
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