Consigliere
Member
Posts: 3
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« on: July 05, 2017, 04:39:36 AM » |
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Hello,
I've been struggling with trying to convert Word documents into DITA. I have a number of methods available, but none have really worked out for me. I'm using XMetaL 12 Author Enterprise.
I have tried to convert Word documents into DITA with a program called X-ICE, which is advertised as sort of an extension of XMetaL. However, there is next to no information on it online. There's the user manual online - which happens to be more complete than the manual it comes with - but no one has as much as commented on the program on any forums, let alone shared tips or tricks or anything.
My problem with X-ICE lies in that it requires you to create specific rules to "scan" Word documents with. In certain cases, it goes well enough, but in other cases, the documents' styling is like a patchwork so rules like that won't work. And even if the text is styled conveniently enough that X-ICE can go through it, its output is not simple enough to customize. It constantly runs into problems, such as not closing tags, or closing them but leaving the cursor inside the tag - things that are fairly small, but will throw a gigantic monkey wrench in the works. And EVEN if this problem was solved, it would arise all over again once documents with differently funky layouts pop up. So all in all, X-ICE doesn't sound like a very stable solution.
There is another converter program called Convertoo, but it's even worse than X-ICE in certain ways. While X-ICE's shortcomings could arguably be called user-based on some level, Convertoo simply won't work with half the Word documents I try to convert.
I've even tried looking up alternative methods, such as converting Word into RTF and then somehow converting that into DITA/XML, but that was a fairly fruitless endeavour too. I tried using Paul Tremblay's rtf2xml program, but the attempt fell short at installation.
So my question is: Does XMetaL have any form of assistance regarding the conversion of Word documents into DITA/XML? Oxygen apparently does it natively, but does XMetaL have anything similar? How do people usually deal with the need to bring a ton of legacy documents into DITA?
I've tried copying and pasting the contents of an RTF file to a Generic Topic, and although it did keep the tables, images, and other elements intact, it did have its own problems. And correcting hundreds of files manually doesn't sound too plausible...
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