FIXED: Cannot Copy and Paste from Word to Mac email from some Word documents?

Well, I figured it out.

I was testing all the parameters, and found that it was a STYLE problem.

I'm posting so everyone else with this problem can fix it.

Some, but not all, Word documents will not copy and paste text into Mail.

This happens on 2 different machines: mine running 10.11 on a 2009 iMac, Office 2008

The other is a 2015 iMac running Mojave, Word for Mac 16.54

Both machines have exactly the same symptoms, and 90% of the time they work perfectly.

But on some Word documents, if you cut and past directly from word into mail, nothing happens. This is using all 4 methods: the keyboard ^C-^V, menu copy and paste, context menu (right-click) copy and paste, and highlight, click & drag.

If I save the file locally, it still doesn't work.

If I save the file as a docx (htm), it still doesn't work.

If I maintain compatibility with older formats, it still doesn't work.

There is no hidden text. I can see all the formatting characters, and they are the same.

I can cut and paste into a Word document, into Notes, into Text Edit. All that works just fine.

But not directly from Word into Mail.

It turns out that the document was formatted with a Style "Z-Top of Form". I have no idea where that came from, as I don't have it as a style in my Word. My guess is that it was text copied from an email into the Word doc which has propagated over the years. We just copy one file to the next for this rather complicated format. At some time, it got this weird style and it just stayed with the files.

The fix was simple, if not exactly perfect: select the text, then change the style to normal.

Then you just have to re-format all the colors and bold and font size. But it now works.

Except: it now doublespaces in MacMail. Still working on that...