15 replies to this topic

[jlhaslip]

I have a document which was originally created using ms office word processing with very strict formatting requirements. It is a high level academic paper which I would like to make viewable within a web page complete with the original formatting. I also have it available as a pdf file with the same formatting.

Regardless of the format, is there a way to convert this highly formatted document into an html page and retain the formatting without major work?

The only way I have been able to do this so far is with the use of a table layout , an iframe, and the client having a copy of the document's format software (either ms office or acrobat reader). None of these are desirable alternatives because the iframe forces the document to open with either the word processor and the iframe is (I think) a deprecated element in html according to w3 standards. Or am I mistaken?

And to recode the document into html/css is a nightmare due to the volume and complexity of the document.

Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.

[Tyssen]

Why don't you just link directly to the Word doc or PDF if it's gonna be too much work to convert into HTML?

[jlhaslip]

How's that done? (please provide an example.) And doesn't that require the client to have the same software?

Not everyone has ms office word processing.
Acrobat reader is probably more readily available, but it requires that the reader gets "fired up" and is a resource burden, (the file is about 600K),so I was just curious to see if there might be another way to do it.

[Tyssen]

jlhaslip, on Sep 18 2005, 07:11 PM, said:

How's that done? (please provide an example.) And doesn't that require the client to have the same software?

You just put the link to your file, so instead of www.yoursite.com/index.html, you'd have www.yoursite.com/your.pdf. Yes, the user will need to have the software installed. If your PDF is 600k then you're probably looking at something similar file size-wise in HTML so I wouldn't be too worried about being a resource burden. If, as you say, it's going to take a lot of work to convert, then maybe it's best not to.
If it's a high level academic paper, it's more than likely your user base will a) be used to viewing/downloading PDFs online; and have reasonably fast internet connections (and 600k is nothing really).

[Tyssen]

Sorry for double posting but you can't be expected to remember every time that if you type b ), that it's gonna turn it into a smilie.

[jlhaslip]

Okay, thanks for the input. That is pretty much what I have been doing with this file. Using the pdf version, and linking to it with an anchor tag, so I guess I'll keep on doing it that way. Just checking to see if anyone knew of a better way.

Thanks for your time and assistance.

[Lozbo]

Ms Office documents have a "save as" function that allows you to save as html (and even xml). Ive used this in excel, but the code is a little bit messy, though it keeps to the design well.

If the design is too complex maybe it wont hold it, and I don’t remember how obsolete the code was (according to w3 standars), but it might be a nice start for coding it all into css hehe…

Maybe you can post a link of the file and if I have the time I could give it a look, or you could get some other good old trap seventeen member to help ya sort this out.

-10730

[jlhaslip]

Lozbo, on Sep 19 2005, 02:55 PM, said:

Ms Office documents have a "save as" function that allows you to save as html

If the design is too complex maybe it wont hold it, .... but it might be a nice start for coding it all into css hehe…

Tried it using Ms office 2000 and it was a disaster... Maybe a newer version would do better, but I don't have it, so...

Okay, I'll find a spot to upload it to and let you know... thanks.

[Tyssen]

jlhaslip, on Sep 20 2005, 08:54 AM, said:

Tried it using Ms office 2000 and it was a disaster... Maybe a newer version would do better, but I don't have it, so...

All Microsoft products produce disastrous HTML code and while Microsoft continues to flout standards, I wouldn't bet any of their future products will be any better.

[deadlytedly]

There's a utility here that has a 30-day trial which sounds like it might do the job:

RTF to XHTML converter

Another here which is free:

Easy Text to HTML Converter

Hope one of them does the job for you.