Here is the function I wound up writing that does the job fairly well (as far as I can tell anyway).
I am certainly open for improvement suggestions if anyone has any. Thanks.
function cleanWordPaste( in_word_text ) {
var tmp = document.createElement("DIV");
tmp.innerHTML = in_word_text;
var newString = tmp.textContent||tmp.innerText;
// this next piece converts line breaks into break tags
// and removes the seemingly endless crap code
newString = newString.replace(/\n\n/g, "<br />").replace(/.*<!--.*-->/g,"");
// this next piece removes any break tags (up to 10) at beginning
for ( i=0; i<10; i++ ) {
if ( newString.substr(0,6)=="<br />" ) {
newString = newString.replace("<br />", "");
}
}
return newString;
}
Hope this is helpful to some of you.