Pasting resume:
 

I am finding several job websites where the applicant is required to paste their resume into a box, resulting in something that is barely recognizable
as the professional looking, word-formatted resume you spent hours perfecting. Is there a proper fix for this?

I would turn off all formatting in word and redo your resume so it looks somewhat OK without indents and whatever else doesn't translate.

My thought would be to just paste it in there and look through the mess it leaves and make sure it looks readable (only). Don't knock yourself out reformatting it then, at least not very much. All you are doing is entering a searchable form of it into the HR software so HR can do quick searches of thousands of resumes without having to ferret through them one by one for critical facts. If it comes time to do an interview they will request a formatted version.

Take your word resume and copy/paste it to a .txt document. Clean it up and reformat. Use that for "automated" entries. I personally WOULD make sure that it at least looked a bit presentable- even though it's usually for automated scanner software, you never know who might take a look to see if you were detail oriented.