We have worked hard to improve the article posting behavior of the site.
1. We have studied hard the Word paste functionality to make sure that a lot of the invisible garbage that Word brings in is not displayed.
2. It is possible to put HTML into the article if you wish. Click on basic text and then HTML. This is a good way to insert things like < embed > material or stuff like PollDaddy polls.
We are working on other improvements in this area.