When I am copying a word, excel, ppt document on to a site page, why am I losing the formatting?

Microsoft Word is the worst. Use Notepad instead and copy paste. Word has hidden code issues.

As a general rule, do not try to format your content in a 3rd party software such as MS Word and try to copy / paste it into the site. Word especially, will insert a ton of code into the background source that you do not see. That code tends to interfere with site performance. Learn to use the formatting tools that are provided in the editor. You can control Fonts, colors, size, alignment, images etc all within the editor and the editor will write code that is acceptable to the system. Even more important is that if you were to copy and paste from word into the editor for composing an email to the class, your email likely will not be delivered to your member and won't even generate a bounce. Email programs will filter that message out and it may not even land in the junk folder. So - learn to use the editor that we provide.

When I try to copy something from the website and insert it in an email (personal, not site generated), the text is unreadable because the background color appears as if it is a highlight color. Example: sending an email to multiple classmates on the steps to remove a bounceback. I had to copy and paste to either notepad or doc format, then copy and paste to email. Not a big deal, I just wondered if I am doing something to cause this issue.

Weird. Try this. Copy the content. Open a Notepad / Simple Text editor. Paste and then select and copy again. Now paste into your email editor.

Disregard my comment. I just re-read your full message and it seems you already knew that trick. I don't know why this would be happening.