[Sigia-l] Word HTML - money were my mouth is (was When Should a Manual be Web-based?)

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Martin, Chris C. wrote:

>Here's what some people in my office do. This requires Dreamweaver.
>
>Get a plugin that for Word called "Office HTML Filter 2.0":
>http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/Msohtmf2.aspx
>
>Then:
>
>1. Save Word file as HTML using the Word "Compact HTML" filter.
>2. In Dreamweaver, do a File>>Import>>Word HTML.
>3. Allow Dreamweaver to attempt cleanup of remaining junk HTML code.
>4. When done, in Dreamweaver do File>>Convert>>3.0 Browser Compatible. 
>5. Select "CSS Styles to HTML Markup" and hit OK.
>
This is fine if you did not care about the headers or the proper bullets 
or outlines being converted over.  We have tried this tools and it still 
needs touching up by hand to reapply the information structure.  

I manage a team that deals with this problem on a daily basis.  We have 
clients that develop information documents in MS Word and have finely 
sculpted information for print.  Saving to HTML turns this into an 
information blob that needs somebody to go into the HTML and add the 
proper structures so that the information is properly structured and 
many of the lines of the information sculpture are seen again.  We 
figure between 7 developers that perform this work there are many $100k 
spent that should not need to be spent if Word did the conversion well.

All the best,
Thomas