A question for the webmasters out there...

[Mu Satach]

I'm shopping right now for different ways people like to convert documents. :)

I'm going to be setting up an online reference site over the next few months for my job and will be needing to convert a hefty manual done in Word and another hefty manual done completely in WordPerfect and due to the layout is in complete tables... which will need to be mimic'd in the online material.

Currently when I need to convert a document I just bite the bullet and make a style sheet and a template then convert my doc into a plain text document then clip and paste the text into the template. That's kinda fine for the occational newsletter I do... but I'm not looking forward to doing that with some 600+ pages.

I don't like to use the conversion utility that comes with Word and WordPerfect because I always end up having to go through and hand correct code... (even when I use HTML Tidy... there's always something off... plus because I like to use stylesheets I end up trying/needing to strip out all the font tags anyway... )

So, I'm just wondering if anyone else here has ever played with converting documents and if so how... cause I'm always on the look out for a better way to do something. :)

danke!

[Admiral Lebron]

I'll ask my parents, cause they both know a bit(or more) about stuff like that.

[Zelgadis Graywords]

Hmm... I've never really done anything like that, nor had the need to. But then, I just use notepad for all my html needs.

[Sanis Prent]

Notepad serves all my purposes.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Dreamweaver is your friend.

[Mu Satach]

care to expand upon that thought DT?

We currently don't have dreamweaver but I can get it if I can make a good enough case for it. Cause right now what I use is basicly a glorified notepad editor.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Dreamweaver can convert and clean up Word HTML and I think can even read Word 2000 docs native. Dont quote me on the last, but I do know Dreamweaverwill code clean Word HTML really well

[Mu Satach]

hmm... I'll have to quizz a few friends that have dreamweaver about it a bit.

[Ysanne Isard]

Yes. Dreamweaver CAN do that. But it's not 100 percent fail-safe either - I mostly end up having to go in and fix some things manually.

For example, if you let it clean up your script, and you have a document in which you left two lines between your paragraphs (and did that on purpose), Dreamweaver will cut that down to only one line. There are other glitches that come with it, too.

In the end, I think you'll always have to end up going in and fixing little things manually, no matter what HTML editor you put it through.

[Sith Ahnk]

I love Dreamweaver

[Mu Satach]

Yeah, I'm not worried about working on each page... I just don't want to end up working on the whole page, (thereby wishing I'd just hand coded the whole thing.)

Edit - you know what I wish, I wish you could specify your own clean up properties... and have individual tags stripped.