What exactly is MsoNormal

[BaldEagle]

I recently acquired a client that wanted some updating and when I started looking through the pages I found literally hundreds of <p class="MsoNormal"> lines. Yet here is no class defined for it anywhere in the document and there is no style sheet either. All css is in the document. Can someone tell me what this is? I have seen it before when I viewed source on pages but never tried to actually track it down until now.

BaldEagle

[BaldEagle]

Sorry about hitting this before anyone responsed but I found this in the code as well:
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So now I am assuming it something to do with an MS Office product. Anyone know how it works? Since I want to convert the site to an external css file should I just get rid of that stuff?

BaldEagle

[Nook Schreier]

That is (as you suspect) left over from someone converting an Office file to a web page. I have converted many powerpoint presentations, and that's all over the place. I have never found it defined either, and removing it never seemed to make any difference. I believe it is meant to be a "default" text styling, so you can either make a msoNormal class in your CSS that mirrors your standard text, or you can remove it altogether. Should have the same end-result either way.

[BaldEagle]

Thanks for the quick response. I think I'll just do away with it. Since I have to clean all the inline styling out anyway I'll create my own class with my own name.

Thanks again,

BaldEagle

[Jay.B]

Ok this will be a little long winded.........mso normal is a MS office definition. When you use a Microsoft product to create a web page it actually creates 3 xml docs. the web page, the Data Type Definition, and Xml Style sheet. the deifinition is in either the DTD or XSL(style sheet).