[texhax] Convert from Latex to Word

[Ross Moore]

Hello all,

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Dieter Meinert wrote:

> Best way I found to recover most of the equations and tables is to strip
> the (La)TeX commands (by detex and manually) and import the the plain text
> to word. Or convert the dvi to plain text as dvi2tty and catdvi do, though
> this will also loose some mathematical signs and readability depending on
> the options.
>
> Any converter is limited, especially so is latex2rtf or tex2word, due mainly
> to the limits of word typesetting.
>
> BTW: Did anyone try to create a dvi2word routine? Since word is *supposed* to
>      be a wysiwig program and to support tables and equations and bitmap
>      figures, this should be another way to crack the problem.

Surely it's better to convert to HTML, via LaTeX2HTML or TeX4ht,
then open the .html files with M$word, and resave as .doc or .rtf .
Not only will that preserve the tables, but it will give decent images
of the mathematics, which is the best you can expect from M$word anyway.

If you need to do this a lot, then it's worth exploring all the options
that are available with LaTeX2HTML, to determine how to get the best
results with the kind of LaTeX documents that you need to convert.

If you really don't like images for the mathematics, then LaTeX2HTML
provides the original LaTeX source as HTML comments, so you can take
that and deal with it in some other way.


Have fun,

	Ross Moore

>
>
>  Regards
>                                                         Dieter Meinert
>
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>  * Dr. Dieter Meinert                                                  *
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: texhax-bounces at tug.org [mailto:texhax-bounces at tug.org]On Behalf Of Herbert Gintis
> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 7:28 AM
> To: Tom Schneider
> Cc: texhax
> Subject: Re: [texhax] Convert from Latex to Word
>
>
> Dear Tom,
>         I have followed this thread with interest. I have heard this question asked many times. My opinion, which may be incorrect, is that it's easy to translate text, footnotes, bibliography, and even simple macros from LaTeX to Word. It is less easy to translate formulas, although rough translation of math symbols and Greek letters is possible and easy. More complicated stuff cannot be translated, unless you create the TeX formulas with special software. Figures are impossible to translate.
>         Please correct me, someone, if I am wrong here.
>         I wrote my own translator from LaTeX to rtf (the rtf language is public), which is readable by Word and other word-processing software. I'm sure the CTAN translators are fine for simple stuff, since I had no trouble writing my own.
>         If you do all your figures in eps, both LaTeX and Word can handle them. As for complex formulas, there is no way, unless you convert them to eps or something else Word can read, possibly from a pdf file. I don't know.
>
> Best,
>
> Herb
>
>
> Herbert Gintis
> External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute
> Visiting Professor, Columbia University
> Emeritus Professor, University of Massachusetts
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