Thread View: comp.text.tex
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Started by Wilfried Hennings
Thu, 07 Nov 1996 00:00
FAQ: Converters between (La)TeX and PC Wordproc
Author: Wilfried Hennings
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 1996 00:00
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 1996 00:00
597 lines
24262 bytes
24262 bytes
This is a list of RTF/Word/WP <-> LaTeX - converters,
as of Oct 29, 1996
Note that it contains information about converters
ONLY between LaTeX and PC word processors.
Converters to and from other formats may have own FAQ lists.
The latest version of this list can be obtained via
<http://www.kfa-juelich.de/isr/1/texconv.html>
Following the suggestions of several people, I am posting this list
_regularly_ once a month to comp.text.tex and aus.computers.tex.
I hope this frequency fits most needs.
This FAQ list is also available from the British CTAN archive
ftp ftp.tex.ac.uk or <http://www.tex.ac.uk>
Unfortunately the US CTAN archive (ftp.shsu.edu) is frozen at the
moment.
This list is as good or as bad as its support,
and I need YOUR support to update and supplement this list.
Please supplement if you know more and/or better ones.
There are some more converters on the CTAN sites,
but the following seem to be most promising for conversion
to and from the currect versions of wordprocessors.
Neither correctness nor completeness is guaranteed.
All opinions mentioned (if any) are my own, not my employer's.
Please send corrections, enhancements and supplements
to the following address:
e-mail: <W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de>
Fax: (+49) 2461 61 8254
Mail: W. Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
ISR
D-52425 Juelich
Germany
Some general remarks on converting LaTeX documents.
---------------------------------------------------
The preferred way is to use RTF as an intermediate format,
because it is coded in ASCII and its structure is described
in freely available documents. However there are several versions
of RTF depending of the version of textprocessor. While
the latest version of Microsoft Word for Windows can read all
versions of RTF, most converters are limited to an earlier RTF version.
I do not know how to tell MS Word for Windows 6/7 to export to
an earlier RTF version.
Another possibility would be to use HTML or SGML as an intermediate format.
There are free HTML converters available from Microsoft for both
Word for Windows 6 and 7; I am not sure about WordPerfect.
Because HTML is a structured format, the conversion between
html and LaTeX is rather straightforward. Converters are
available from CTAN, e.g. in /pub/tex/support/latex2html and
/pub/tex/support/html2latex. There remain the limitations
of HTML compared to LaTeX, i.e. there are many elements in LaTeX
which can not (yet?) be represented in HTML.
Although I got an e-mail telling about ongoing work to
use SGML as intermediate format for several conversions,
it seems not to be ready-to-use at present.
***********************************************************************
LATEX -> RTF (WORD / WORD PERFECT)
==================================
When using an RTF converter, the converter output will be in RTF format.
This is a pure ASCII file containing all the formatting information which
can be read-in by Word for DOS, Word for Windows and Word for Macintosh.
As far as I know, also WordPerfect and others can read RTF.
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
+++++ Announcing Tex2RTF 1.47 +++++
+++++ A Free LaTeX to RTF, Windows Help RTF, HTML & wxHelp converter +++++
Purpose
=======
* Allows you to maintain manuals in printed and hypertext formats.
* Allows conversion of existing LaTeX documents to word processor
formats (usually some 'tweaking' is required to conform to
Tex2RTF restrictions).
Input
=====
A LaTeX subset with some additional hypertext macros; no maths,
minimal table support.
Caveat: Please do not expect to convert arbitrary LaTex files without
editing: this is not the primary intention of Tex2RTF. Success converting
existing LaTeX depends on your expectations and the style in which
the LaTeX was written. Tex2RTF does not accept pure TeX (non-LaTeX)
documents.
Output
======
* ordinary RTF
* Windows Help hypertext RTF
* HTML (the World Wide Web hypertext format)
* wxHelp (the wxWindows GUI library help file format)
Installation
============
Under Windows, please run the supplied install.exe program. The Tex2RTF
manual itself serves as an example input file, in the docs subdirectory
with various .sty, .ini, and .gif files that you may need for your
own documents. See the online manual for further details.
Platforms supported
===================
* SPARC Open Look
* SPARC Motif
* Windows 3.1
Where to get it
===============
The latest version of Tex2RTF can be accessed by anonymous ftp from
ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk in the directory /pub/packages/tex2rtf.
The WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/tex2rtf.html.
Tex2RTF was developed using the free Open Look/Motif/Windows 3.1 C++
class library wxWindows, also available from the above FTP site in the
/pub/packages/wxwin directory.
The wxWindows WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/wxwin.html.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Smart, June 1995
Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute
University of Edinburgh
80 South Bridge
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH1 1HN
EMAIL: J.Smart@ed.ac.uk
TEL: 0131 650 2746
citation end<<
Also available from CTAN sites, dir .../support/tex2rtf
***********************************************************************
latex2rtf
LaTeX to RTF converter for Unix machines.
>>citation begin
latex2rtf is a translator program that translates LaTeX text into the
RTF format used by several textprocessors, including Microsoft Word and
Word for Windows. It was written by Fernando Dorner and Andreas Granzer
in a one-semester course in our department. For the Copyright of the
Program see the file Copyright.
...(installation description deleted)...
- Try the program and report any errors to the address below.
--
Ralf Schlatterbeck
Treitlstr.3/182/1 email: ralf@vmars.tuwien.ac.at
A-1040 Wien Phone: +43/1/58801/8176
Austria FAX: +43/1/569149
Source and makefiles are available from CTAN sites,
dir .../support/latex2rtf
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TexPort converts TeX and LaTeX to WordPerfect format files.
WordPerfect files can be imported into Microsoft Word.
TexPort converts:
Font styles, such as bold and italic
Footnotes
Greek characters
Math equations and scientific notation
Inline and display format equations
Simple tables, such as those that use the LaTeX macro "as is".
Non-English phrases, European accent characters
\def and \newcommand
K-Talk Communications specializes in equations -
TexPort converts equations into MathEdit format equations,
K-Talk's equation editor.
These equations can then be used in WordPerfect, Word, TeX,
and other documents. The Professional Edition
of MathEdit is included with TexPort.
The MathEdit for Windows demo can be obtained via FTP or WWW.
See details below.
Also available via FTP is the MathEdit Challenge.
Why take 44 hours to produce a technical document
when you can do it in 4?
K-Talk Products Information:
WWW home page http://www.ktalk.com
FTP Site ftp.infinet.com, directory /pub/ktalk
K-Talk Communications, Inc.
phone: (614) 488-8818 1287 King Ave, Suite 203
fax: (614) 488-9505 Columbus, OH 43212-2220
email: lisa@ktalk.com
TexPort is offered with either the DOS or Windows version of
MathEdit. With DOS MathEdit, TexPort sells for $400(US).
For a limited time, TexPort with Windows MathEdit is also $400.
(C) Copyright 1995 K-Talk Communications, Inc.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
WORD/WORDPERFECT/RTF -> LATEX
=============================
Some notes in advance:
One advantage of LaTeX is that it forces to structure a document,
whereas wordprocessors like Word/WordPerfect allow unstructured
documents. It is hardly possible to automatically structure
a document where there was no structure before.
However it is nevertheless possible to write a structured
document with a wordprocessor by consistently using styles.
Therefore, wordprocessor documents using styles
can be converted to LaTeX e.g. by a macro written for the
specific wordprocessor.
To use an RTF converter, the wordprocessor document must first
be "saved as" Rich Text Format.
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
RTFLATEX, a package consisting of a program in pascal which
translates RTF to LaTeX-like commands and a separate sty - file
containing the TeX macro definitions for these commands.
It does not yet support formulas or tables.
Disadvantage: TeX file does not conform to LaTeX style.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtflatex
***********************************************************************
rtf2TeX and rtf2LaTeX for use on Unix-like systems.
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
I'd like to hear of experiences with these.
(They only handle RTF versions up to WinWord 2, not yet WinWord 6;
there are great differences between these rtf versions and
I definitely have problems with WinWord6-rtf with any rtf-converter.)
First, Paul Dubois <dubois@primate.wisc.edu> wrote an RTF reader
and converter to plain text or troff.
The version is dated April 1991.
a)Based on this reader, Robert Lupton <rhl@astro.princeton.edu>
wrote the rtf2TeX converter.
Last revision date: May 1992
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
This is a first attempt at an RTF to TeX converter. The parts that
handle fonts and such like seem to work pretty well, although they
could be improved, but the table handling is a problem. I had a good
deal of trouble trying to figure out what particular rtf control codes
were supposed to do; this makes it hard to convert them into TeX.
I have tried to produce good TeX, but this is not easy due to the
sloppy way that many RTF writers generate redundant font and other
changes.
Many things are not handled at all, more due to my lacking motivation
than to their intrinsic difficulty. For example, I don't support
double columns, but it would be easy enough to do (I'd generate a
control sequence to do it, and add the TeX code required to the
TeX_defs file. I even have the TeX somewhere...).
citation end<<
So far the beginning of the README file. Later he commented:
>>citation begin
Most (all?) RTF is hopelessly unstructured (the equivalent of
\bf \it Hello \rm World \bf He \it \rm said.
) and the code that I wrote tries valiantly to convert this to something
sensible, in this case
{\it Hello\/} World {\bf He} said.
It is this attempt to make the output TeX usable that makes the code
complicated...
I did not try to convert equations or tables as I could find no adaquate
description of either; I don't think that it would be very hard.
citation end<<
My comment is: Tables yes, but formulas will be difficult.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2tex
b)Based on these two, Erwin Wechtl wrote the rtf2LaTeX converter.
Last revision date: Aug. 1993
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
rtf2LaTeX is a filter built on Paul DuBois' RTF reader that converts
RTF (Microsoft's Rich Text Format) into LaTeX.
rtf2LaTeX expends a good deal of effort in an attempt to make the resulting
LaTeX maintainable and modifiable.
citation end<<
At the moment converts text elements, but no formulas and no graphics.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2latex
***********************************************************************
w2latex, written in C. (C compiler necessary.)
Actually converts RTF to LaTeX.
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
Advantages:
Converts text elements and formula fields.
Converts nearly all special characters of the
basic TrueType fonts (Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman)
I personally made some changes to additionally support
German left quotes and a few other special characters.
Disadvantages:
Does not convert the document structure
(i.e. headings are not recognised as such).
Does not handle other fields, equation editor objects, graphics.
Table handling is rudimentary (conversion of table cells
to minipages, but problems with borders).
It only handles RTF versions up to WinWord 2,
not yet WinWord 6.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/w2latex
German version is in dir .../support/w2latex/german
***********************************************************************
WINW2LTX - a set of macros for WinWord 2
now also available for WinWord 6
by Allin Cottrell <cottrell@wfu.edu>
Advantages:
Converts the document structure, i.e.
headings level 1 and 2 (and level 3 in German version),
bulleted lists and numbered lists,
and some of the special characters.
I personally adapted the macros to the German WinWord versions.
If I had more time, I would add conversion of the other
special characters and also of symbol font characters
into mathmode. (Should be rather straightforward.)
Disadvantages:
No conversion of tables, graphics, formulas, fields.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, directories
.../support/winw2ltx/english/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/english/ww6
.../support/winw2ltx/german/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/german/ww6
(5 files in uncompressed form - download binary!)
***********************************************************************
WP2LaTeX, written in C, converts WordPerfect 5.1 to LaTeX.
(From WinWord: Save the Word document in WordPerfect 5.1 format.)
The latest version (3.0a from Jan 94)
makes a first try to convert formulas, but is said
by the author that this is not yet working properly.
It normally crashes on my documents and does not produce any
output. Maybe it's not compatible with the german WinWord version.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/wp2latex-5_1
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com>
Subject: New WordPerfect -> LaTeX Translater
To: W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:16:36 -0400 (EDT)
I recently uploaded my WordPerfect -> LaTeX translater,
called TeXPerfect, to CTAN. It's available in the
support directory under texperf (tex-archives/support/texperf).
Full C source is provided, as are executables for both
DOS and Linux. The 00README file in the directory
provides more details.
John (forkosh@panix.com)
citation end<<
following extracted from the 00README file:
>>citation begin
CONVERSION FUNCTIONALITY
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the LaTeX conversions performed by TeXPerfect are:
o Suppose your input contains a greek alpha from the WordPerfect
character set 8. The output will contain $\alpha$ instead.
Most of the other special character sets provided by
WordPerfect are similarly converted. (This conversion is
table-driven by the data in wpchrset.h, and can be easily
augmented or modified.)
o Superscripts, subscripts, bold, italics, etc, are all properly
interpreted and handled.
o "Hard" returns in WordPerfect _should_ generate an extra blank
line, so that LaTeX will see them as paragraphs. That
functionality is mostly programmed, but a last-minute
difficulty prevented me from completing it. Also, no attempt
is made to generate section/subsection/etc commands.
o If your running text contains an expression like f(x),
TeXPerfect will recognize it and surround it with $'s. A
variety of other ad hoc "rules" are hand-coded into the
program to decide when to enter/exit math mode. Needless to
say, the decision isn't always right. You'll need to correct
tp's mistakes in Step 2 above.
o Equations written with WordPerfect's equation editor will be
reproduced "verbatim" by TeXPerfect, surrounded by \[ and \].
The only correction applied is that 1 over 2 becomes
1 \over 2, and similarly for various other keywords. But no
serious attempt to interpret and translate your equation is
made. Matrices, etc, will require considerable hand-tweaking
on your part. But at least you'll have what you originally
wrote right in front of your eyes.
o A little LaTeX preamble, etc, is provided, primarily for
"cosmetic" purposes. WordPerfect's margin settings, etc, are
_not_ interpreted to construct this preamble. You'll have to
modify that information yourself.
WARNINGS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
TeXPerfect was written to interpret files formatted by WordPerfect
5.1 for DOS. When run against 5.1 files, TeXPerfect is pretty
robust. But, for this release, I commented out the lines that
check the version number. If you're using WP/Win, it can prepare
output in 5.1 format. I'd recommend you do that before using
TeXPerfect.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
Publish your books and documents using TeX or LaTeX with the help
of K-Talk's Publishing Companion (DOS). Translate WordPerfect or
Microsoft Word files to TeX or LaTeX.
- Typeset quality with the ease of word processing
- No need for training sessions or workshops
- Designed for documents of any length or complexity
Publishing Companion translates the following to plain TeX or
LaTeX:
- Automatic Indexes - Newspaper-style Columns
- Boxes - Non-break Hyphens & Spaces
- Centering - Outlines
- Endnotes - Page Numbering
- Flush Right - Paragraphs
- Footnotes - Parallel Columns
- Foreign Characters - Point Sizes
- Full Fonts - Redlining
- Horizontal Lines - Running Headers & Footers
- Indents - Soft Hyphens
- Justification - Strikeout
- Mail Merge - Superscripts & Subscripts
- MathEdit Math Equations - Table of Contents
- MS Word 6.0 Math Equations - Type Styles (bold, italic)
- WordPerfect Math Equations - Widows & Orphans on/off
With Publishing Companion, you don't have to learn TeX to produce
typeset quality TeX output. If you do know TeX, Publishing
Companion simplifies production.
Publishing Companion by K-Talk Communications, Inc. $249.00 (US)
ph. (614) 488-8818
fx. (614) 488-9505
ktalk@delphi.com or ktalk@aol.com
http://www.ktalk.com
citation end<<
However, there was a comment by a disappointed user:
>>citation begin
I had a very similar experience. Basically, conversion of my WP 5.0 and 5.1
documents could not be done with the original version of
Publishing Companion which I bought for $199 in 1993.
After I upgraded MathEdit to 3.0 earlier this year,
it worked no better. (I really had no interest in MathEdit,
but thought that the upgrade would fix the conversion problem.)
I then sent the WordPerfect file to be converted to K-Talk,
who sent me back the converted LaTeX file.
It still had all kinds of problems.
The following was our last correspondence on the subject:
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 14:56:19 PDT
> To: lisa@ktalk.com (Lisa)
> Subject: Re: WP -> TeX status
> Status: RO
> > From lisa@ktalk.com Sat Apr 29 07:35 PDT 1995
> > >
> > >I'm curious to know what progress has been made with this latest problem.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry to take so long to get back to you - Bob said that if you place an
> > upgrade order, he will take the time to make sure that all of the problems
> > you noted have been corrected.
> >
> Dear Lisa,
>
> let's see. The proposal is that if I upgrade 'pub' from a version that didn't
> work to a version that still doesn't work, K-Talk promises to get that version
> working.
There was no reply to that.
Tom Kuiper <kuiper@kuiper.jpl.nasa.gov>
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TCI Software Research publishes Scientific Word and Scientific
WorkPlace. Included with these products is a conversion program that
will input RTF and output LaTeX. This conversion will correctly
convert Microsoft Word Equation Editor or MathType equations in the
RTF file to LaTeX. The conversion program is not available
separately.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
The MathType equation editor, the full scale, commercial version
of WinWord's equation editor, is capable of converting its equations
to TeX format (plain TeX, not LaTeX; conversion to LaTeX is
planned for a future release).
MathType comes with a Word macro which will
convert all the equations in a Word document into TeX.
Design Science, 4028 Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803.
Phone 310-433-0685 Fax 310-433-6969
email - mtinfo@mathtype.com or mtsales@mathtype.com
WWW - http://www.mathtype.com/mathtype/
FTP - ftp.mathtype.com
I personally have MathType 3.1, and it IS able to convert from
its own format as well as from WinWord's EquationEditor format TO TeX.
The backward direction (TeX to MathType) is ONLY possible for
TeX code which was produced by MathType (containing a TeX
comment which allows MathType to see how it was generated).
It also IS possible to convert from MathType to EquationEditor.
***********************************************************************
The following information is cited as received with no guarantee on
useability - I could not test it myself and I have doubts
regarding import and export of WordPro formulas in Word or WordPerfect.
>>citation begin
Lotus WordPro has a good math editor that uses its own storage
format for stand-alone maths. They are also solved with the document,
of course.
The format that WordPro uses for the math save/load is a ".tex" file.
WordPro documents can be loaded and saved in Word, WordPerfect, ...
--
C.R. Fernandez Ruperez
Dept. LSI - Universidad del Pais Vasco
jipferur@si.ehu.es
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
This is a copy of the file CTAN.sites at ftp.dante.de, dated 1.Aug.96
>>citation begin
In order to reduce network load, it is recommended that you use the
Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) host which is located in the
closest network proximity to your site. Alternatively, you may wish to
obtain a copy of the CTAN via CD-ROM (see help/CTAN.cdrom for details).
Article Unavailable
FAQ: Converters between (La)TeX and PC Wordproc
Author: Wilfried Hennings
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 00:00
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 00:00
629 lines
25561 bytes
25561 bytes
This is a list of RTF/Word/WP <-> LaTeX - converters,
as of Nov.20, 1996
Note that it contains information about converters
ONLY between LaTeX and PC word processors.
Converters to and from other formats may have own FAQ lists.
The latest version of this list can be obtained via
<http://www.kfa-juelich.de/isr/1/texconv.html>
Following the suggestions of several people, I am posting this list
_regularly_ once a month to comp.text.tex and aus.computers.tex.
I hope this frequency fits most needs.
This FAQ list is also available from the British CTAN archive
ftp.tex.ac.uk or
www.tex.ac.uk
Unfortunately the US CTAN archive (ftp.shsu.edu) is frozen at the
moment.
This list is as good or as bad as its support,
and I need YOUR support to update and supplement this list.
Please supplement if you know more and/or better ones.
There are some more converters on the CTAN sites,
but the following seem to be most promising for conversion
to and from the currect versions of wordprocessors.
Neither correctness nor completeness is guaranteed.
All opinions mentioned (if any) are my own, not my employer's.
Please send corrections, enhancements and supplements
to the following address:
e-mail: <W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de>
Fax: (+49) 2461 61 8254
Mail: W. Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
ISR
D-52425 Juelich
Germany
Some general remarks on converting LaTeX documents.
---------------------------------------------------
The preferred way is to use RTF as an intermediate format,
because it is coded in ASCII and its structure is described
in freely available documents. However there are several versions
of RTF depending of the version of textprocessor. While
the latest version of Microsoft Word for Windows can read all
versions of RTF, most converters are limited to an earlier RTF version.
I do not know how to tell MS Word for Windows 6/7 to export to
an earlier RTF version.
Another possibility would be to use HTML or SGML as an intermediate format.
There are free HTML converters available from Microsoft for both
Word for Windows 6 and 7; I am not sure about WordPerfect.
Because HTML is a structured format, the conversion between
html and LaTeX is rather straightforward. Converters are
available from CTAN, e.g. in /pub/tex/support/latex2html and
/pub/tex/support/html2latex. There remain the limitations
of HTML compared to LaTeX, i.e. there are many elements in LaTeX
which can not (yet?) be represented in HTML.
Although I got an e-mail telling about ongoing work to
use SGML as intermediate format for several conversions,
it seems not to be ready-to-use at present.
***********************************************************************
LATEX -> RTF (WORD / WORD PERFECT)
==================================
When using an RTF converter, the converter output will be in RTF format.
This is a pure ASCII file containing all the formatting information which
can be read-in by Word for DOS, Word for Windows and Word for Macintosh.
As far as I know, also WordPerfect and others can read RTF.
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
+++++ Announcing Tex2RTF 1.47 +++++
+++++ A Free LaTeX to RTF, Windows Help RTF, HTML & wxHelp converter +++++
Purpose
=======
* Allows you to maintain manuals in printed and hypertext formats.
* Allows conversion of existing LaTeX documents to word processor
formats (usually some 'tweaking' is required to conform to
Tex2RTF restrictions).
Input
=====
A LaTeX subset with some additional hypertext macros; no maths,
minimal table support.
Caveat: Please do not expect to convert arbitrary LaTex files without
editing: this is not the primary intention of Tex2RTF. Success converting
existing LaTeX depends on your expectations and the style in which
the LaTeX was written. Tex2RTF does not accept pure TeX (non-LaTeX)
documents.
Output
======
* ordinary RTF
* Windows Help hypertext RTF
* HTML (the World Wide Web hypertext format)
* wxHelp (the wxWindows GUI library help file format)
Installation
============
Under Windows, please run the supplied install.exe program. The Tex2RTF
manual itself serves as an example input file, in the docs subdirectory
with various .sty, .ini, and .gif files that you may need for your
own documents. See the online manual for further details.
Platforms supported
===================
* SPARC Open Look
* SPARC Motif
* Windows 3.1
Where to get it
===============
The latest version of Tex2RTF can be accessed by anonymous ftp from
ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk in the directory /pub/packages/tex2rtf.
The WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/tex2rtf.html.
Tex2RTF was developed using the free Open Look/Motif/Windows 3.1 C++
class library wxWindows, also available from the above FTP site in the
/pub/packages/wxwin directory.
The wxWindows WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/wxwin.html.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Smart, June 1995
Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute
University of Edinburgh
80 South Bridge
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH1 1HN
EMAIL: J.Smart@ed.ac.uk
TEL: 0131 650 2746
citation end<<
Also available from CTAN sites, dir .../support/tex2rtf
***********************************************************************
latex2rtf
LaTeX to RTF converter for Unix machines.
>>citation begin
latex2rtf is a translator program that translates LaTeX text into the
RTF format used by several textprocessors, including Microsoft Word and
Word for Windows. It was written by Fernando Dorner and Andreas Granzer
in a one-semester course in our department. For the Copyright of the
Program see the file Copyright.
...(installation description deleted)...
- Try the program and report any errors to the address below.
--
Ralf Schlatterbeck
Treitlstr.3/182/1 email: ralf@vmars.tuwien.ac.at
A-1040 Wien Phone: +43/1/58801/8176
Austria FAX: +43/1/569149
Source and makefiles are available from CTAN sites,
dir .../support/latex2rtf
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TexPort converts TeX and LaTeX to WordPerfect format files.
WordPerfect files can be imported into Microsoft Word.
TexPort converts:
Font styles, such as bold and italic
Footnotes
Greek characters
Math equations and scientific notation
Inline and display format equations
Simple tables, such as those that use the LaTeX macro "as is".
Non-English phrases, European accent characters
\def and \newcommand
K-Talk Communications specializes in equations -
TexPort converts equations into MathEdit format equations,
K-Talk's equation editor.
These equations can then be used in WordPerfect, Word, TeX,
and other documents. The Professional Edition
of MathEdit is included with TexPort.
The MathEdit for Windows demo can be obtained via FTP or WWW.
See details below.
Also available via FTP is the MathEdit Challenge.
Why take 44 hours to produce a technical document
when you can do it in 4?
K-Talk Products Information:
WWW home page http://www.ktalk.com
FTP Site ftp.infinet.com, directory /pub/ktalk
K-Talk Communications, Inc.
phone: (614) 488-8818 1287 King Ave, Suite 203
fax: (614) 488-9505 Columbus, OH 43212-2220
email: lisa@ktalk.com
TexPort is offered with either the DOS or Windows version of
MathEdit. With DOS MathEdit, TexPort sells for $400(US).
For a limited time, TexPort with Windows MathEdit is also $400.
(C) Copyright 1995 K-Talk Communications, Inc.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
WORD/WORDPERFECT/RTF -> LATEX
=============================
Some notes in advance:
One advantage of LaTeX is that it forces to structure a document,
whereas wordprocessors like Word/WordPerfect allow unstructured
documents. It is hardly possible to automatically structure
a document where there was no structure before.
However it is nevertheless possible to write a structured
document with a wordprocessor by consistently using styles.
Therefore, wordprocessor documents using styles
can be converted to LaTeX e.g. by a macro written for the
specific wordprocessor.
To use an RTF converter, the wordprocessor document must first
be "saved as" Rich Text Format.
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
RTFLATEX, a package consisting of a program in pascal which
translates RTF to LaTeX-like commands and a separate sty - file
containing the TeX macro definitions for these commands.
It does not yet support formulas or tables.
Disadvantage: TeX file does not conform to LaTeX style.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtflatex
***********************************************************************
rtf2TeX and rtf2LaTeX for use on Unix-like systems.
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
I'd like to hear of experiences with these.
(They only handle RTF versions up to WinWord 2, not yet WinWord 6;
there are great differences between these rtf versions and
I definitely have problems with WinWord6-rtf with any rtf-converter.)
First, Paul Dubois <dubois@primate.wisc.edu> wrote an RTF reader
and converter to plain text or troff.
The version is dated April 1991.
a)Based on this reader, Robert Lupton <rhl@astro.princeton.edu>
wrote the rtf2TeX converter.
Last revision date: May 1992
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
This is a first attempt at an RTF to TeX converter. The parts that
handle fonts and such like seem to work pretty well, although they
could be improved, but the table handling is a problem. I had a good
deal of trouble trying to figure out what particular rtf control codes
were supposed to do; this makes it hard to convert them into TeX.
I have tried to produce good TeX, but this is not easy due to the
sloppy way that many RTF writers generate redundant font and other
changes.
Many things are not handled at all, more due to my lacking motivation
than to their intrinsic difficulty. For example, I don't support
double columns, but it would be easy enough to do (I'd generate a
control sequence to do it, and add the TeX code required to the
TeX_defs file. I even have the TeX somewhere...).
citation end<<
So far the beginning of the README file. Later he commented:
>>citation begin
Most (all?) RTF is hopelessly unstructured (the equivalent of
\bf \it Hello \rm World \bf He \it \rm said.
) and the code that I wrote tries valiantly to convert this to something
sensible, in this case
{\it Hello\/} World {\bf He} said.
It is this attempt to make the output TeX usable that makes the code
complicated...
I did not try to convert equations or tables as I could find no adaquate
description of either; I don't think that it would be very hard.
citation end<<
My comment is: Tables yes, but formulas will be difficult.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2tex
b)Based on these two, Erwin Wechtl wrote the rtf2LaTeX converter.
Last revision date: Aug. 1993
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
rtf2LaTeX is a filter built on Paul DuBois' RTF reader that converts
RTF (Microsoft's Rich Text Format) into LaTeX.
rtf2LaTeX expends a good deal of effort in an attempt to make the resulting
LaTeX maintainable and modifiable.
citation end<<
At the moment converts text elements, but no formulas and no graphics.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2latex
***********************************************************************
w2latex, written in C. (C compiler necessary.)
Actually converts RTF to LaTeX.
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
Advantages:
Converts text elements and formula fields.
Converts nearly all special characters of the
basic TrueType fonts (Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman)
I personally made some changes to additionally support
German left quotes and a few other special characters.
Disadvantages:
Does not convert the document structure
(i.e. headings are not recognised as such).
Does not handle other fields, equation editor objects, graphics.
Table handling is rudimentary (conversion of table cells
to minipages, but problems with borders).
It only handles RTF versions up to WinWord 2,
not yet WinWord 6.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/w2latex
German version is in dir .../support/w2latex/german
***********************************************************************
WINW2LTX - a set of macros for WinWord 2
now also available for WinWord 6
by Allin Cottrell <cottrell@wfu.edu>
Advantages:
Converts the document structure, i.e.
headings level 1 and 2 (and level 3 in German version),
bulleted lists and numbered lists,
and some of the special characters.
I personally adapted the macros to the German WinWord versions.
If I had more time, I would add conversion of the other
special characters and also of symbol font characters
into mathmode. (Should be rather straightforward.)
Disadvantages:
No conversion of tables, graphics, formulas, fields.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, directories
.../support/winw2ltx/english/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/english/ww6
.../support/winw2ltx/german/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/german/ww6
(5 files in uncompressed form - download binary!)
***********************************************************************
WP2LaTeX, written in C, converts WordPerfect 5.1 to LaTeX.
(From WinWord: Save the Word document in WordPerfect 5.1 format.)
The latest version (3.0a from Jan 94)
makes a first try to convert formulas, but is said
by the author that this is not yet working properly.
It normally crashes on my documents and does not produce any
output. Maybe it's not compatible with the german WinWord version.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/wp2latex-5_1
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com>
Subject: New WordPerfect -> LaTeX Translater
To: W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:16:36 -0400 (EDT)
I recently uploaded my WordPerfect -> LaTeX translater,
called TeXPerfect, to CTAN. It's available in the
support directory under texperf (tex-archives/support/texperf).
Full C source is provided, as are executables for both
DOS and Linux. The 00README file in the directory
provides more details.
John (forkosh@panix.com)
citation end<<
following extracted from the 00README file:
>>citation begin
CONVERSION FUNCTIONALITY
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the LaTeX conversions performed by TeXPerfect are:
o Suppose your input contains a greek alpha from the WordPerfect
character set 8. The output will contain $\alpha$ instead.
Most of the other special character sets provided by
WordPerfect are similarly converted. (This conversion is
table-driven by the data in wpchrset.h, and can be easily
augmented or modified.)
o Superscripts, subscripts, bold, italics, etc, are all properly
interpreted and handled.
o "Hard" returns in WordPerfect _should_ generate an extra blank
line, so that LaTeX will see them as paragraphs. That
functionality is mostly programmed, but a last-minute
difficulty prevented me from completing it. Also, no attempt
is made to generate section/subsection/etc commands.
o If your running text contains an expression like f(x),
TeXPerfect will recognize it and surround it with $'s. A
variety of other ad hoc "rules" are hand-coded into the
program to decide when to enter/exit math mode. Needless to
say, the decision isn't always right. You'll need to correct
tp's mistakes in Step 2 above.
o Equations written with WordPerfect's equation editor will be
reproduced "verbatim" by TeXPerfect, surrounded by \[ and \].
The only correction applied is that 1 over 2 becomes
1 \over 2, and similarly for various other keywords. But no
serious attempt to interpret and translate your equation is
made. Matrices, etc, will require considerable hand-tweaking
on your part. But at least you'll have what you originally
wrote right in front of your eyes.
o A little LaTeX preamble, etc, is provided, primarily for
"cosmetic" purposes. WordPerfect's margin settings, etc, are
_not_ interpreted to construct this preamble. You'll have to
modify that information yourself.
WARNINGS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
TeXPerfect was written to interpret files formatted by WordPerfect
5.1 for DOS. When run against 5.1 files, TeXPerfect is pretty
robust. But, for this release, I commented out the lines that
check the version number. If you're using WP/Win, it can prepare
output in 5.1 format. I'd recommend you do that before using
TeXPerfect.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
Publish your books and documents using TeX or LaTeX with the help
of K-Talk's Publishing Companion (DOS). Translate WordPerfect or
Microsoft Word files to TeX or LaTeX.
- Typeset quality with the ease of word processing
- No need for training sessions or workshops
- Designed for documents of any length or complexity
Publishing Companion translates the following to plain TeX or
LaTeX:
- Automatic Indexes - Newspaper-style Columns
- Boxes - Non-break Hyphens & Spaces
- Centering - Outlines
- Endnotes - Page Numbering
- Flush Right - Paragraphs
- Footnotes - Parallel Columns
- Foreign Characters - Point Sizes
- Full Fonts - Redlining
- Horizontal Lines - Running Headers & Footers
- Indents - Soft Hyphens
- Justification - Strikeout
- Mail Merge - Superscripts & Subscripts
- MathEdit Math Equations - Table of Contents
- MS Word 6.0 Math Equations - Type Styles (bold, italic)
- WordPerfect Math Equations - Widows & Orphans on/off
With Publishing Companion, you don't have to learn TeX to produce
typeset quality TeX output. If you do know TeX, Publishing
Companion simplifies production.
Publishing Companion by K-Talk Communications, Inc. $249.00 (US)
ph. (614) 488-8818
fx. (614) 488-9505
ktalk@delphi.com or ktalk@aol.com
http://www.ktalk.com
citation end<<
However, there was a comment by a disappointed user:
>>citation begin
I had a very similar experience. Basically, conversion of my WP 5.0 and 5.1
documents could not be done with the original version of
Publishing Companion which I bought for $199 in 1993.
After I upgraded MathEdit to 3.0 earlier this year,
it worked no better. (I really had no interest in MathEdit,
but thought that the upgrade would fix the conversion problem.)
I then sent the WordPerfect file to be converted to K-Talk,
who sent me back the converted LaTeX file.
It still had all kinds of problems.
The following was our last correspondence on the subject:
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 14:56:19 PDT
> To: lisa@ktalk.com (Lisa)
> Subject: Re: WP -> TeX status
> Status: RO
> > From lisa@ktalk.com Sat Apr 29 07:35 PDT 1995
> > >
> > >I'm curious to know what progress has been made with this latest problem.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry to take so long to get back to you - Bob said that if you place an
> > upgrade order, he will take the time to make sure that all of the problems
> > you noted have been corrected.
> >
> Dear Lisa,
>
> let's see. The proposal is that if I upgrade 'pub' from a version that didn't
> work to a version that still doesn't work, K-Talk promises to get that version
> working.
There was no reply to that.
Tom Kuiper <kuiper@kuiper.jpl.nasa.gov>
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TCI Software Research publishes Scientific Word and Scientific
WorkPlace. Included with these products is a conversion program that
will input RTF and output LaTeX. This conversion will correctly
convert Microsoft Word Equation Editor or MathType equations in the
RTF file to LaTeX. The conversion program is not available
separately.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
The MathType equation editor, the full scale, commercial version
of WinWord's equation editor, is capable of converting its equations
to TeX format (plain TeX, not LaTeX; conversion to LaTeX is
planned for a future release).
MathType comes with a Word macro which will
convert all the equations in a Word document into TeX.
Design Science, 4028 Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803.
Phone 310-433-0685 Fax 310-433-6969
email - mtinfo@mathtype.com or mtsales@mathtype.com
WWW - http://www.mathtype.com/mathtype/
FTP - ftp.mathtype.com
I personally have MathType 3.1, and it IS able to convert from
its own format as well as from WinWord's EquationEditor format TO TeX.
The backward direction (TeX to MathType) is ONLY possible for
TeX code which was produced by MathType (containing a TeX
comment which allows MathType to see how it was generated).
It also IS possible to convert from MathType to EquationEditor.
***********************************************************************
The following information is cited as received with no guarantee on
useability - I could not test it myself and I have doubts
regarding import and export of WordPro formulas in Word or WordPerfect.
>>citation begin
Lotus WordPro has a good math editor that uses its own storage
format for stand-alone maths. They are also solved with the document,
of course.
I have been mailed by people that comment they bought WordPro just to
have this feature. Using some metacomments in the Latex source and a bit
of awk, it could be possible to do bidirectional equation modification in
any latex document, even if there is no good way to convert the rest.
The format that WordPro uses for the math save/load is a ".tex" file.
WordPro documents can be loaded and saved in Word, WordPerfect, ...
--
C.R. Fernandez Ruperez
Dept. LSI - Universidad del Pais Vasco
jipferur@si.ehu.es
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
OTHER PC WORDPROC -> LATEX
==========================
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: Guido Milanese <MC1194@mclink.it>
This is to inform that there is a new program that converts
NotaBene files to LaTeX format. It is my NB4LATEX program, that
converts files from NotaBene4 (including ancient Greek and all
the symbols of logic) to LaTeX2e format. The program may be
downloaded from my homepage at the URL:
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3023/nb4latex.zip
This is also a little contribution to the issue ov 'visual'
editing for TeX. With this conversion program and its utilities,
you can use NotaBene for editing (seeing all the accents, the
Greek chars, etc.) and, at the very final stage of document
preparation, convert it to LaTeX2e.
It is a beta version. Please contact me for any problem.
Thanks, gm
citation end<<
remark by the FAQ maintainer:
Nota Bene's home page is <http://soho.ios.com/~notabene/index.html>
***********************************************************************
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Juelich GmbH, ISR
D-52425 Juelich, Germany
Tel. (+49) 2461 61 5570 ; Fax (G3+G4) (+49) 2461 61 8254
Homepage: http://www.kfa-juelich.de/
All opinions mentioned are strictly my own.
FAQ: Converters between (La)TeX and PC Wordproc
Author: Wilfried Hennings
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 00:00
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 00:00
712 lines
28694 bytes
28694 bytes
This is a list of RTF/Word/WP <-> LaTeX - converters,
as of Jan.22, 1997
Note that it contains information about converters
ONLY between LaTeX and PC word processors.
Converters to and from other formats may have own FAQ lists.
The latest version of this list as well as a short German version
can always be obtained via
<http://www.kfa-juelich.de/isr/1/texconv.html>
<ftp://isr016.isr.kfa-juelich.de/Tex/texcnven.txt>
The lists also reside on CTAN in the directory
.../tex-archive/help/wp-conv/
Following the suggestions of several people, I am posting this list
_regularly_ once a month to comp.text.tex and aus.computers.tex.
I hope this frequency fits most needs.
This list is as good or as bad as its support,
and I need YOUR support to update and supplement this list.
Please supplement if you know more and/or better ones.
There are some more converters on the CTAN sites,
but the following seem to be most promising for conversion
to and from the currect versions of wordprocessors.
Neither correctness nor completeness is guaranteed.
All opinions mentioned (if any) are my own, not my employer's.
Please send corrections, enhancements and supplements
to the following address:
e-mail: <W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de>
Fax: (+49) 2461 61 8254
Mail: W. Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
ISR
D-52425 Juelich
Germany
Some general remarks on converting LaTeX documents.
---------------------------------------------------
The preferred way to convert to or from PC textprocessors
is to use RTF as an intermediate format,
because it is coded in ASCII and its structure is described
in freely available documents. However there are several versions
of RTF depending of the version of textprocessor. While
the latest version of Microsoft Word for Windows can read all
versions of RTF, most converters are limited to an earlier RTF version.
I do not know how to tell MS Word for Windows 6/7 to export to
an earlier RTF version.
Another possibility would be to use HTML or SGML as an intermediate format.
There are free HTML converters available from Microsoft for both
Word for Windows 6 and 7; I am not sure about WordPerfect.
Because HTML is a structured format, the conversion between
HTML and LaTeX is rather straightforward. Converters are
available from CTAN, e.g. in /pub/tex/support/latex2html and
/pub/tex/support/html2latex. There remain the limitations
of HTML compared to LaTeX, i.e. there are many elements in LaTeX
which can not (yet?) be represented in HTML.
Although I got an e-mail telling about ongoing work to
use SGML as intermediate format for several conversions,
it seems not to be ready-to-use at present.
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
LATEX -> RTF (WORD / WORD PERFECT)
==================================
When using an RTF converter, the converter output will be in RTF format.
This is a pure ASCII file containing all the formatting information which
can be read-in by Word for DOS, Word for Windows and Word for Macintosh.
As far as I know, also WordPerfect and others can read RTF.
***********************************************************************
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
+++++ Announcing Tex2RTF 1.47 +++++
+++++ A Free LaTeX to RTF, Windows Help RTF, HTML & wxHelp converter +++++
Purpose
=======
* Allows you to maintain manuals in printed and hypertext formats.
* Allows conversion of existing LaTeX documents to word processor
formats (usually some 'tweaking' is required to conform to
Tex2RTF restrictions).
Input
=====
A LaTeX subset with some additional hypertext macros; no maths,
minimal table support.
Caveat: Please do not expect to convert arbitrary LaTex files without
editing: this is not the primary intention of Tex2RTF. Success converting
existing LaTeX depends on your expectations and the style in which
the LaTeX was written. Tex2RTF does not accept pure TeX (non-LaTeX)
documents.
Output
======
* ordinary RTF
* Windows Help hypertext RTF
* HTML (the World Wide Web hypertext format)
* wxHelp (the wxWindows GUI library help file format)
Installation
============
Under Windows, please run the supplied install.exe program. The Tex2RTF
manual itself serves as an example input file, in the docs subdirectory
with various .sty, .ini, and .gif files that you may need for your
own documents. See the online manual for further details.
Platforms supported
===================
* SPARC Open Look
* SPARC Motif
* Windows 3.1
Where to get it
===============
The latest version of Tex2RTF can be accessed by anonymous ftp from
ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk in the directory /pub/packages/tex2rtf.
The WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/tex2rtf.html.
Tex2RTF was developed using the free Open Look/Motif/Windows 3.1 C++
class library wxWindows, also available from the above FTP site in the
/pub/packages/wxwin directory.
The wxWindows WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/wxwin.html.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Smart, June 1995
Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute
University of Edinburgh
80 South Bridge
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH1 1HN
EMAIL: J.Smart@ed.ac.uk
TEL: 0131 650 2746
citation end<<
Also available from CTAN sites, dir .../support/tex2rtf
***********************************************************************
latex2rtf
LaTeX to RTF converter, written in C.
>>citation begin
latex2rtf is a translator program that translates LaTeX text into the
RTF format used by several textprocessors, including Microsoft Word and
Word for Windows. It was written by Fernando Dorner and Andreas Granzer
in a one-semester course in our department. For the Copyright of the
Program see the file Copyright.
...(installation description deleted)...
- Try the program and report any errors to the address below.
--
Ralf Schlatterbeck email: ralf@zoo.priv.at
Treitlstr.3/182/1 Phone: +43/1/58801/8176
A-1040 Wien FAX: +43/1/8034419/23
Austria Fidonet: 2:310/802.3
citation end<<
C-source and makefiles of the latest (May 1995) version
as well as an executable for MSDOS are available from
CTAN sites, dir .../support/latex2rtf.
>>citation begin
Try getting the latest version (1.5) from ftp.vmars.tuwien.ac.at in /pub/misc.
This version should compile without warnings. Be sure to read the README file.
The latest version (Dec. 96) contains a bug which requires compilation with
gcc with the option -fwritable-strings
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TexPort converts TeX and LaTeX to WordPerfect format files.
WordPerfect files can be imported into Microsoft Word.
TexPort converts:
Font styles, such as bold and italic
Footnotes
Greek characters
Math equations and scientific notation
Inline and display format equations
Simple tables, such as those that use the LaTeX macro "as is".
Non-English phrases, European accent characters
\def and \newcommand
K-Talk Communications specializes in equations -
TexPort converts equations into MathEdit format equations,
K-Talk's equation editor.
These equations can then be used in WordPerfect, Word, TeX,
and other documents. The Professional Edition
of MathEdit is included with TexPort.
The MathEdit for Windows demo can be obtained via FTP or WWW.
See details below.
Also available via FTP is the MathEdit Challenge.
Why take 44 hours to produce a technical document
when you can do it in 4?
K-Talk Products Information:
WWW home page http://www.ktalk.com
FTP Site ftp.infinet.com, directory /pub/ktalk
K-Talk Communications, Inc.
phone: (614) 488-8818 1287 King Ave, Suite 203
fax: (614) 488-9505 Columbus, OH 43212-2220
email: lisa@ktalk.com
TexPort is offered with either the DOS or Windows version of
MathEdit. With DOS MathEdit, TexPort sells for $400(US).
For a limited time, TexPort with Windows MathEdit is also $400.
(C) Copyright 1995 K-Talk Communications, Inc.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
LATEX -> OTHER WORDPROC
=======================
***********************************************************************
FrameMaker:
The site
<http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/software/framemaker.html>
contains templates which make conversion from Framemaker to LaTeX more
easy. It also supplies converters
from Framemaker to LaTeX and
from LaTeX to Framemaker:
la2mml
Converts LaTeX documents to MML (Maker Markup Language),
a format used by FrameMaker, a page layout program available
for Unix, Windows, and Mac.
"Craig Little" <clittle@prenhall.com> wrote:
>>I have used this utility successfully for
a project I'm working on with articles from a dozen different authors
using all kinds of TeX versions.<<
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
WORD/WORDPERFECT/RTF -> LATEX
=============================
Some notes in advance:
One advantage of LaTeX is that it forces to structure a document,
whereas wordprocessors like Word/WordPerfect allow unstructured
documents. It is hardly possible to automatically structure
a document where there was no structure before.
However it is nevertheless possible to write a structured
document with a wordprocessor by consistently using styles.
Therefore, wordprocessor documents using styles
can be converted to LaTeX e.g. by a macro written for the
specific wordprocessor.
To use an RTF converter, the wordprocessor document must first
be "saved as" Rich Text Format.
***********************************************************************
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
RTFLATEX, a package consisting of a program in Pascal
(also available as C-source) which translates RTF
to LaTeX-like commands and a separate sty - file
containing the TeX macro definitions for these commands.
It does not yet support formulas or tables.
Disadvantage: TeX file does not conform to LaTeX style.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtflatex
including source and MSDOS executable
***********************************************************************
rtf2TeX and rtf2LaTeX (written in C).
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
I'd like to hear of experiences with these.
(They only handle RTF versions up to WinWord 2, not yet WinWord 6;
there are great differences between these rtf versions and
I definitely have problems with WinWord6-rtf with any rtf-converter.)
First, Paul Dubois <dubois@primate.wisc.edu> wrote an RTF reader
and converter to plain text or troff.
The version is dated April 1991.
a)Based on this reader, Robert Lupton <rhl@astro.princeton.edu>
wrote the rtf2TeX converter.
Last revision date: May 1992
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
This is a first attempt at an RTF to TeX converter. The parts that
handle fonts and such like seem to work pretty well, although they
could be improved, but the table handling is a problem. I had a good
deal of trouble trying to figure out what particular rtf control codes
were supposed to do; this makes it hard to convert them into TeX.
I have tried to produce good TeX, but this is not easy due to the
sloppy way that many RTF writers generate redundant font and other
changes.
Many things are not handled at all, more due to my lacking motivation
than to their intrinsic difficulty. For example, I don't support
double columns, but it would be easy enough to do (I'd generate a
control sequence to do it, and add the TeX code required to the
TeX_defs file. I even have the TeX somewhere...).
citation end<<
So far the beginning of the README file. Later he commented:
>>citation begin
Most (all?) RTF is hopelessly unstructured (the equivalent of
\bf \it Hello \rm World \bf He \it \rm said.
) and the code that I wrote tries valiantly to convert this to something
sensible, in this case
{\it Hello\/} World {\bf He} said.
It is this attempt to make the output TeX usable that makes the code
complicated...
I did not try to convert equations or tables as I could find no adaquate
description of either; I don't think that it would be very hard.
citation end<<
My comment is: Tables yes, but formulas will be difficult.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2tex
b)Based on these two, Erwin Wechtl wrote the rtf2LaTeX converter.
Last revision date: Aug. 1993
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
rtf2LaTeX is a filter built on Paul DuBois' RTF reader that converts
RTF (Microsoft's Rich Text Format) into LaTeX.
rtf2LaTeX expends a good deal of effort in an attempt to make the resulting
LaTeX maintainable and modifiable.
citation end<<
At the moment converts text elements, but no formulas and no graphics.
C-source and an executable for MSDOS
can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2latex
***********************************************************************
w2latex, written in C. (C compiler necessary.)
Actually converts RTF to LaTeX.
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
Advantages:
Converts text elements and formula fields.
Converts nearly all special characters of the
basic TrueType fonts (Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman)
I personally made some changes to additionally support
German left quotes and a few other special characters.
Disadvantages:
Does not convert the document structure
(i.e. headings are not recognised as such).
Does not handle other fields, equation editor objects, graphics.
Table handling is rudimentary (conversion of table cells
to minipages, but problems with borders).
It only handles RTF versions up to WinWord 2,
not yet WinWord 6.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/w2latex
German version is in dir .../support/w2latex/german
***********************************************************************
WINW2LTX - a set of macros for WinWord 2
now also available for WinWord 6
by Allin Cottrell <cottrell@wfu.edu>
Advantages:
Converts the document structure, i.e.
headings level 1 and 2 (and level 3 in German version),
bulleted lists and numbered lists,
and some of the special characters.
I personally adapted the macros to the German WinWord versions.
If I had more time, I would add conversion of the other
special characters and also of symbol font characters
into mathmode. (Should be rather straightforward.)
Disadvantages:
No conversion of tables, graphics, formulas, fields.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, directories
.../support/winw2ltx/english/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/english/ww6
.../support/winw2ltx/german/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/german/ww6
(5 files in uncompressed form - download binary!)
***********************************************************************
WP2LaTeX, written in C, converts WordPerfect 5.1 to LaTeX.
(From WinWord: Save the Word document in WordPerfect 5.1 format.)
The latest version (3.0a from Jan 94)
makes a first try to convert formulas, but is said
by the author that this is not yet working properly.
It normally crashes on my documents and does not produce any
output. Maybe it's not compatible with the german WinWord version.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/wp2latex,
but only as MSDOS executable.
An older version, INCLUDING SOURCE, is
on CTAN sites, dir .../support/wp2latex-5_1
On this version I got the following comment:
On Mon, 09 Dec 1996, "Stefan Monnier" <monnier-stefan@CS.YALE.EDU> wrote:
> To get it to compile on AIX and Solaris, I've had to hack a bit of the
> code. The only serious problem being the handling of file termination (the
> original source code uses the length of the file and ftell or EOF characters,
> which are both failry msdos-specific, so I changed it to use getc's return
> value to detect and of file).
>
> Also the underlining doesn't quite work (the words do get underlined, but
> any underlined sequence of text cannot span more than a line. So I manually
> replaced "\Underline{" by "{\bf " in the document.
>
> Apart from that, it worked great.
> I can mail you some set of patches also
I'd like to hear of any further experiences!
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com>
Subject: New WordPerfect -> LaTeX Translater
To: W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:16:36 -0400 (EDT)
I recently uploaded my WordPerfect -> LaTeX translater,
called TeXPerfect, to CTAN. It's available in the
support directory under texperf (tex-archives/support/texperf).
Full C source is provided, as are executables for both
DOS and Linux. The 00README file in the directory
provides more details.
John (forkosh@panix.com)
citation end<<
following extracted from the 00README file:
>>citation begin
CONVERSION FUNCTIONALITY
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the LaTeX conversions performed by TeXPerfect are:
o Suppose your input contains a greek alpha from the WordPerfect
character set 8. The output will contain $\alpha$ instead.
Most of the other special character sets provided by
WordPerfect are similarly converted. (This conversion is
table-driven by the data in wpchrset.h, and can be easily
augmented or modified.)
o Superscripts, subscripts, bold, italics, etc, are all properly
interpreted and handled.
o "Hard" returns in WordPerfect _should_ generate an extra blank
line, so that LaTeX will see them as paragraphs. That
functionality is mostly programmed, but a last-minute
difficulty prevented me from completing it. Also, no attempt
is made to generate section/subsection/etc commands.
o If your running text contains an expression like f(x),
TeXPerfect will recognize it and surround it with $'s. A
variety of other ad hoc "rules" are hand-coded into the
program to decide when to enter/exit math mode. Needless to
say, the decision isn't always right. You'll need to correct
tp's mistakes in Step 2 above.
o Equations written with WordPerfect's equation editor will be
reproduced "verbatim" by TeXPerfect, surrounded by \[ and \].
The only correction applied is that 1 over 2 becomes
1 \over 2, and similarly for various other keywords. But no
serious attempt to interpret and translate your equation is
made. Matrices, etc, will require considerable hand-tweaking
on your part. But at least you'll have what you originally
wrote right in front of your eyes.
o A little LaTeX preamble, etc, is provided, primarily for
"cosmetic" purposes. WordPerfect's margin settings, etc, are
_not_ interpreted to construct this preamble. You'll have to
modify that information yourself.
WARNINGS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
TeXPerfect was written to interpret files formatted by WordPerfect
5.1 for DOS. When run against 5.1 files, TeXPerfect is pretty
robust. But, for this release, I commented out the lines that
check the version number. If you're using WP/Win, it can prepare
output in 5.1 format. I'd recommend you do that before using
TeXPerfect.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
Publish your books and documents using TeX or LaTeX with the help
of K-Talk's Publishing Companion (DOS). Translate WordPerfect or
Microsoft Word files to TeX or LaTeX.
- Typeset quality with the ease of word processing
- No need for training sessions or workshops
- Designed for documents of any length or complexity
Publishing Companion translates the following to plain TeX or
LaTeX:
- Automatic Indexes - Newspaper-style Columns
- Boxes - Non-break Hyphens & Spaces
- Centering - Outlines
- Endnotes - Page Numbering
- Flush Right - Paragraphs
- Footnotes - Parallel Columns
- Foreign Characters - Point Sizes
- Full Fonts - Redlining
- Horizontal Lines - Running Headers & Footers
- Indents - Soft Hyphens
- Justification - Strikeout
- Mail Merge - Superscripts & Subscripts
- MathEdit Math Equations - Table of Contents
- MS Word 6.0 Math Equations - Type Styles (bold, italic)
- WordPerfect Math Equations - Widows & Orphans on/off
With Publishing Companion, you don't have to learn TeX to produce
typeset quality TeX output. If you do know TeX, Publishing
Companion simplifies production.
Publishing Companion by K-Talk Communications, Inc. $249.00 (US)
ph. (614) 488-8818
fx. (614) 488-9505
ktalk@delphi.com or ktalk@aol.com
http://www.ktalk.com
citation end<<
However, there was a comment by a disappointed user:
>>citation begin
I had a very similar experience. Basically, conversion of my WP 5.0 and 5.1
documents could not be done with the original version of
Publishing Companion which I bought for $199 in 1993.
After I upgraded MathEdit to 3.0 earlier this year,
it worked no better. (I really had no interest in MathEdit,
but thought that the upgrade would fix the conversion problem.)
I then sent the WordPerfect file to be converted to K-Talk,
who sent me back the converted LaTeX file.
It still had all kinds of problems.
The following was our last correspondence on the subject:
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 14:56:19 PDT
> To: lisa@ktalk.com (Lisa)
> Subject: Re: WP -> TeX status
> Status: RO
> > From lisa@ktalk.com Sat Apr 29 07:35 PDT 1995
> > >
> > >I'm curious to know what progress has been made with this latest problem.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry to take so long to get back to you - Bob said that if you place an
> > upgrade order, he will take the time to make sure that all of the problems
> > you noted have been corrected.
> >
> Dear Lisa,
>
> let's see. The proposal is that if I upgrade 'pub' from a version that didn't
> work to a version that still doesn't work, K-Talk promises to get that version
> working.
There was no reply to that.
Tom Kuiper <kuiper@kuiper.jpl.nasa.gov>
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TCI Software Research publishes Scientific Word and Scientific
WorkPlace. Included with these products is a conversion program that
will input RTF and output LaTeX. This conversion will correctly
convert Microsoft Word Equation Editor or MathType equations in the
RTF file to LaTeX. The conversion program is not available
separately.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
The MathType equation editor, the full scale, commercial version
of WinWord's equation editor, is capable of converting its equations
to TeX format (plain TeX, not LaTeX; conversion to LaTeX is
planned for a future release).
MathType comes with a Word macro which will
convert all the equations in a Word document into TeX.
Design Science, 4028 Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803.
Phone 310-433-0685 Fax 310-433-6969
email - mtinfo@mathtype.com or mtsales@mathtype.com
WWW - http://www.mathtype.com/mathtype/
FTP - ftp.mathtype.com
I personally have MathType 3.1, and it IS able to convert from
its own format as well as from WinWord's EquationEditor format TO TeX.
The backward direction (TeX to MathType) is ONLY possible for
TeX code which was produced by MathType (containing a TeX
comment which allows MathType to see how it was generated).
It also IS possible to convert from MathType to EquationEditor.
***********************************************************************
The following information is cited as received with no guarantee on
useability - I could not test it myself and I have doubts
regarding import and export of WordPro formulas in Word or WordPerfect.
>>citation begin
Lotus WordPro has a good math editor that uses its own storage
format for stand-alone maths. They are also solved with the document,
of course.
I have been mailed by people that comment they bought WordPro just to
have this feature. Using some metacomments in the Latex source and a bit
of awk, it could be possible to do bidirectional equation modification in
any latex document, even if there is no good way to convert the rest.
The format that WordPro uses for the math save/load is a ".tex" file.
WordPro documents can be loaded and saved in Word, WordPerfect, ...
--
C.R. Fernandez Ruperez
Dept. LSI - Universidad del Pais Vasco
jipferur@si.ehu.es
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
OTHER PC WORDPROC -> LATEX
==========================
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: Guido Milanese <MC1194@mclink.it>
This is to inform that there is a new program that converts
NotaBene files to LaTeX format. It is my NB4LATEX program, that
converts files from NotaBene4 (including ancient Greek and all
the symbols of logic) to LaTeX2e format. The program may be
downloaded from my homepage at the URL:
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3023/nb4latex.zip
This is also a little contribution to the issue ov 'visual'
editing for TeX. With this conversion program and its utilities,
you can use NotaBene for editing (seeing all the accents, the
Greek chars, etc.) and, at the very final stage of document
preparation, convert it to LaTeX2e.
It is a beta version. Please contact me for any problem.
Thanks, gm
citation end<<
remark by the FAQ maintainer:
Nota Bene's home page is <http://soho.ios.com/~notabene/index.html>
***********************************************************************
FrameMaker:
The site
<http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/software/framemaker.html>
contains templates which make conversion from Framemaker to LaTeX more
easy. It also supplies converters
from Framemaker to LaTeX and
from LaTeX to Framemaker
***********************************************************************
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Juelich GmbH, ISR
D-52425 Juelich, Germany
Tel. (+49) 2461 61 5570 ; Fax (G3+G4) (+49) 2461 61 8254
Homepage: http://www.kfa-juelich.de/
All opinions mentioned are strictly my own.
FAQ: Converters between (La)TeX and PC Wordproc
Author: Wilfried Hennings
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:00
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:00
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This is a list of RTF/Word/WP <-> LaTeX - converters,
as of Feb.12, 1997
Note that it contains information about converters
ONLY between LaTeX and PC word processors.
Converters to and from other formats may have own FAQ lists.
The latest version of this list as well as a short German version
can always be obtained via
<http://www.kfa-juelich.de/isr/1/texconv.html>,
a page containing links to both the html and the text version of the FAQ list.
If you don't have www access you can get the lists
from the following ftp addresses
(the ftp server is down on weekends from Fr 15:30 CET to Mo 08:30 CET
and during my holidays):
<ftp://isr016.isr.kfa-juelich.de/Tex/texcnven.html> (html version)
<ftp://isr016.isr.kfa-juelich.de/Tex/texcnven.txt> (text version)
The lists also reside on CTAN in the directory
.../tex-archive/help/wp-conv/
Following the suggestions of several people, I am posting this list
_regularly_ once a month to comp.text.tex and aus.computers.tex.
I hope this frequency fits most needs.
This list is as good or as bad as its support,
and I need YOUR support to update and supplement this list.
Please supplement if you know more and/or better ones.
There are some more converters on the CTAN sites,
but the following seem to be most promising for conversion
to and from the currect versions of wordprocessors.
Neither correctness nor completeness is guaranteed.
All opinions mentioned (if any) are my own, not my employer's.
Please send corrections, enhancements and supplements
to the following address:
e-mail: <W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de>
Fax: (+49) 2461 61 8254
Mail: W. Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
ISR
D-52425 Juelich
Germany
Some general remarks on converting LaTeX documents.
---------------------------------------------------
The preferred way to convert to or from PC textprocessors
is to use RTF as an intermediate format,
because it is coded in ASCII and its structure is described
in freely available documents. However there are several versions
of RTF depending of the version of textprocessor. While
the latest version of Microsoft Word for Windows can read all
versions of RTF, most converters are limited to an earlier RTF version.
I do not know how to tell MS Word for Windows 6/7 to export to
an earlier RTF version.
Another possibility would be to use HTML or SGML as an intermediate format.
There are free HTML converters available from Microsoft for both
Word for Windows 6 and 7; I am not sure about WordPerfect.
Because HTML is a structured format, the conversion between
HTML and LaTeX is rather straightforward. Converters are
available from CTAN, e.g. in /pub/tex/support/latex2html and
/pub/tex/support/html2latex. There remain the limitations
of HTML compared to LaTeX, i.e. there are many elements in LaTeX
which can not (yet?) be represented in HTML.
Although I got an e-mail telling about ongoing work to
use SGML as intermediate format for several conversions,
it seems not to be ready-to-use at present.
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
LATEX -> RTF (WORD / WORD PERFECT)
==================================
When using an RTF converter, the converter output will be in RTF format.
This is a pure ASCII file containing all the formatting information which
can be read-in by Word for DOS, Word for Windows and Word for Macintosh.
As far as I know, also WordPerfect and others can read RTF.
***********************************************************************
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
+++++ Announcing Tex2RTF 1.47 +++++
+++++ A Free LaTeX to RTF, Windows Help RTF, HTML & wxHelp converter +++++
Purpose
=======
* Allows you to maintain manuals in printed and hypertext formats.
* Allows conversion of existing LaTeX documents to word processor
formats (usually some 'tweaking' is required to conform to
Tex2RTF restrictions).
Input
=====
A LaTeX subset with some additional hypertext macros; no maths,
minimal table support.
Caveat: Please do not expect to convert arbitrary LaTex files without
editing: this is not the primary intention of Tex2RTF. Success converting
existing LaTeX depends on your expectations and the style in which
the LaTeX was written. Tex2RTF does not accept pure TeX (non-LaTeX)
documents.
Output
======
* ordinary RTF
* Windows Help hypertext RTF
* HTML (the World Wide Web hypertext format)
* wxHelp (the wxWindows GUI library help file format)
Installation
============
Under Windows, please run the supplied install.exe program. The Tex2RTF
manual itself serves as an example input file, in the docs subdirectory
with various .sty, .ini, and .gif files that you may need for your
own documents. See the online manual for further details.
Platforms supported
===================
* SPARC Open Look
* SPARC Motif
* Windows 3.1
Where to get it
===============
The latest version of Tex2RTF can be accessed by anonymous ftp from
ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk in the directory /pub/packages/tex2rtf.
The WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/tex2rtf.html.
Tex2RTF was developed using the free Open Look/Motif/Windows 3.1 C++
class library wxWindows, also available from the above FTP site in the
/pub/packages/wxwin directory.
The wxWindows WWW pages are at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/wxwin.html.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Smart, June 1995
Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute
University of Edinburgh
80 South Bridge
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH1 1HN
EMAIL: J.Smart@ed.ac.uk
TEL: 0131 650 2746
citation end<<
Also available from CTAN sites, dir .../support/tex2rtf
***********************************************************************
latex2rtf
LaTeX to RTF converter, written in C.
>>citation begin
latex2rtf is a translator program that translates LaTeX text into the
RTF format used by several textprocessors, including Microsoft Word and
Word for Windows. It was written by Fernando Dorner and Andreas Granzer
in a one-semester course in our department. For the Copyright of the
Program see the file Copyright.
...(installation description deleted)...
- Try the program and report any errors to the address below.
--
Ralf Schlatterbeck email: ralf@zoo.priv.at
Treitlstr.3/182/1 Phone: +43/1/58801/8176
A-1040 Wien FAX: +43/1/8034419/23
Austria Fidonet: 2:310/802.3
citation end<<
C-source and makefiles of the latest (May 1995) version
as well as an executable for MSDOS are available from
CTAN sites, dir .../support/latex2rtf.
>>citation begin
Try getting the latest version (1.5) from ftp.vmars.tuwien.ac.at in /pub/misc.
This version should compile without warnings. Be sure to read the README file.
The latest version (Dec. 96) contains a bug which requires compilation with
gcc with the option -fwritable-strings
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TexPort converts TeX and LaTeX to WordPerfect format files.
WordPerfect files can be imported into Microsoft Word.
TexPort converts:
Font styles, such as bold and italic
Footnotes
Greek characters
Math equations and scientific notation
Inline and display format equations
Simple tables, such as those that use the LaTeX macro "as is".
Non-English phrases, European accent characters
\def and \newcommand
K-Talk Communications specializes in equations -
TexPort converts equations into MathEdit format equations,
K-Talk's equation editor.
These equations can then be used in WordPerfect, Word, TeX,
and other documents. The Professional Edition
of MathEdit is included with TexPort.
The MathEdit for Windows demo can be obtained via FTP or WWW.
See details below.
Also available via FTP is the MathEdit Challenge.
Why take 44 hours to produce a technical document
when you can do it in 4?
K-Talk Products Information:
WWW home page http://www.ktalk.com/
FTP Site ftp.ktalk.com, directory /pub/ktalk
K-Talk Communications, Inc.
phone: (614) 488-8818 1287 King Ave, Suite 203
fax: (614) 488-9505 Columbus, OH 43212-2220
email: lisa@ktalk.com
TexPort is offered with either the DOS or Windows version of
MathEdit. With DOS MathEdit, TexPort sells for $400(US).
TexPort with Windows MathEdit is $499.
(C) Copyright 1995 K-Talk Communications, Inc.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
LATEX -> OTHER WORDPROC
=======================
***********************************************************************
FrameMaker:
The site
<http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/software/framemaker.html>
contains templates which make conversion from Framemaker to LaTeX more
easy. It also supplies converters
from Framemaker to LaTeX and
from LaTeX to Framemaker:
la2mml
Converts LaTeX documents to MML (Maker Markup Language),
a format used by FrameMaker, a page layout program available
for Unix, Windows, and Mac.
USA site:
<http://www.ius.cs.cmu.edu/help/Document/latex2fm.html>
CTAN upload in progress.
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
WORD/WORDPERFECT/RTF -> LATEX
=============================
Some notes in advance:
One advantage of LaTeX is that it forces to structure a document,
whereas wordprocessors like Word/WordPerfect allow unstructured
documents. It is hardly possible to automatically structure
a document where there was no structure before.
However it is nevertheless possible to write a structured
document with a wordprocessor by consistently using styles.
Therefore, wordprocessor documents using styles
can be converted to LaTeX e.g. by a macro written for the
specific wordprocessor.
To use an RTF converter, the wordprocessor document must first
be "saved as" Rich Text Format.
***********************************************************************
A. Non-Commercial:
Non-commercial converters can be found on CTAN sites.
***********************************************************************
RTFLATEX, a package consisting of a program in Pascal
(also available as C-source) which translates RTF
to LaTeX-like commands and a separate sty - file
containing the TeX macro definitions for these commands.
It does not yet support formulas or tables.
Disadvantage: TeX file does not conform to LaTeX style.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtflatex
including source and MSDOS executable
***********************************************************************
rtf2TeX and rtf2LaTeX (written in C).
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
I'd like to hear of experiences with these.
(They only handle RTF versions up to WinWord 2, not yet WinWord 6;
there are great differences between these rtf versions and
I definitely have problems with WinWord6-rtf with any rtf-converter.)
First, Paul Dubois <dubois@primate.wisc.edu> wrote an RTF reader
and converter to plain text or troff.
The version is dated April 1991.
a)Based on this reader, Robert Lupton <rhl@astro.princeton.edu>
wrote the rtf2TeX converter.
Last revision date: May 1992
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
This is a first attempt at an RTF to TeX converter. The parts that
handle fonts and such like seem to work pretty well, although they
could be improved, but the table handling is a problem. I had a good
deal of trouble trying to figure out what particular rtf control codes
were supposed to do; this makes it hard to convert them into TeX.
I have tried to produce good TeX, but this is not easy due to the
sloppy way that many RTF writers generate redundant font and other
changes.
Many things are not handled at all, more due to my lacking motivation
than to their intrinsic difficulty. For example, I don't support
double columns, but it would be easy enough to do (I'd generate a
control sequence to do it, and add the TeX code required to the
TeX_defs file. I even have the TeX somewhere...).
citation end<<
So far the beginning of the README file. Later he commented:
>>citation begin
Most (all?) RTF is hopelessly unstructured (the equivalent of
\bf \it Hello \rm World \bf He \it \rm said.
) and the code that I wrote tries valiantly to convert this to something
sensible, in this case
{\it Hello\/} World {\bf He} said.
It is this attempt to make the output TeX usable that makes the code
complicated...
I did not try to convert equations or tables as I could find no adaquate
description of either; I don't think that it would be very hard.
citation end<<
My comment is: Tables yes, but formulas will be difficult.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2tex
b)Based on these two, Erwin Wechtl wrote the rtf2LaTeX converter.
Last revision date: Aug. 1993
He comments on this as follows (README-file):
>>citation begin
rtf2LaTeX is a filter built on Paul DuBois' RTF reader that converts
RTF (Microsoft's Rich Text Format) into LaTeX.
rtf2LaTeX expends a good deal of effort in an attempt to make the resulting
LaTeX maintainable and modifiable.
citation end<<
At the moment converts text elements, but no formulas and no graphics.
C-source and an executable for MSDOS
can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/rtf2latex
***********************************************************************
w2latex, written in C. (C compiler necessary.)
Actually converts RTF to LaTeX.
The Word document must first be saved to disk in RTF format.
Advantages:
Converts text elements and formula fields.
Converts nearly all special characters of the
basic TrueType fonts (Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman)
I personally made some changes to additionally support
German left quotes and a few other special characters.
Disadvantages:
Does not convert the document structure
(i.e. headings are not recognised as such).
Does not handle other fields, equation editor objects, graphics.
Table handling is rudimentary (conversion of table cells
to minipages, but problems with borders).
It only handles RTF versions up to WinWord 2,
not yet WinWord 6.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/w2latex
German version is in dir .../support/w2latex/german
***********************************************************************
WINW2LTX - a set of macros for WinWord 2
now also available for WinWord 6
by Allin Cottrell <cottrell@wfu.edu>
Advantages:
Converts the document structure, i.e.
headings level 1 and 2 (and level 3 in German version),
bulleted lists and numbered lists,
and some of the special characters.
I personally adapted the macros to the German WinWord versions.
If I had more time, I would add conversion of the other
special characters and also of symbol font characters
into mathmode. (Should be rather straightforward.)
Disadvantages:
No conversion of tables, graphics, formulas, fields.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, directories
.../support/winw2ltx/english/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/english/ww6
.../support/winw2ltx/german/ww2, .../support/winw2ltx/german/ww6
(5 files in uncompressed form - download binary!)
***********************************************************************
WP2LaTeX, written in C, converts WordPerfect 5.1 to LaTeX.
(From WinWord: Save the Word document in WordPerfect 5.1 format.)
The latest version (3.0a from Jan 94)
makes a first try to convert formulas, but is said
by the author that this is not yet working properly.
It normally crashes on my documents and does not produce any
output. Maybe it's not compatible with the german WinWord version.
Can be found on all CTAN sites, dir .../support/wp2latex,
but only as MSDOS executable.
An older version, INCLUDING SOURCE, is
on CTAN sites, dir .../support/wp2latex-5_1
On this version I got the following comment:
On Mon, 09 Dec 1996, "Stefan Monnier" <monnier-stefan@CS.YALE.EDU> wrote:
> To get it to compile on AIX and Solaris, I've had to hack a bit of the
> code. The only serious problem being the handling of file termination (the
> original source code uses the length of the file and ftell or EOF characters,
> which are both failry msdos-specific, so I changed it to use getc's return
> value to detect and of file).
>
> Also the underlining doesn't quite work (the words do get underlined, but
> any underlined sequence of text cannot span more than a line. So I manually
> replaced "\Underline{" by "{\bf " in the document.
>
> Apart from that, it worked great.
> I can mail you some set of patches also
I'd like to hear of any further experiences!
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: John Forkosh <forkosh@panix.com>
Subject: New WordPerfect -> LaTeX Translater
To: W.Hennings@kfa-juelich.de
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:16:36 -0400 (EDT)
I recently uploaded my WordPerfect -> LaTeX translater,
called TeXPerfect, to CTAN. It's available in the
support directory under texperf (tex-archives/support/texperf).
Full C source is provided, as are executables for both
DOS and Linux. The 00README file in the directory
provides more details.
John (forkosh@panix.com)
citation end<<
following extracted from the 00README file:
>>citation begin
CONVERSION FUNCTIONALITY
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the LaTeX conversions performed by TeXPerfect are:
o Suppose your input contains a greek alpha from the WordPerfect
character set 8. The output will contain $\alpha$ instead.
Most of the other special character sets provided by
WordPerfect are similarly converted. (This conversion is
table-driven by the data in wpchrset.h, and can be easily
augmented or modified.)
o Superscripts, subscripts, bold, italics, etc, are all properly
interpreted and handled.
o "Hard" returns in WordPerfect _should_ generate an extra blank
line, so that LaTeX will see them as paragraphs. That
functionality is mostly programmed, but a last-minute
difficulty prevented me from completing it. Also, no attempt
is made to generate section/subsection/etc commands.
o If your running text contains an expression like f(x),
TeXPerfect will recognize it and surround it with $'s. A
variety of other ad hoc "rules" are hand-coded into the
program to decide when to enter/exit math mode. Needless to
say, the decision isn't always right. You'll need to correct
tp's mistakes in Step 2 above.
o Equations written with WordPerfect's equation editor will be
reproduced "verbatim" by TeXPerfect, surrounded by \[ and \].
The only correction applied is that 1 over 2 becomes
1 \over 2, and similarly for various other keywords. But no
serious attempt to interpret and translate your equation is
made. Matrices, etc, will require considerable hand-tweaking
on your part. But at least you'll have what you originally
wrote right in front of your eyes.
o A little LaTeX preamble, etc, is provided, primarily for
"cosmetic" purposes. WordPerfect's margin settings, etc, are
_not_ interpreted to construct this preamble. You'll have to
modify that information yourself.
WARNINGS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
TeXPerfect was written to interpret files formatted by WordPerfect
5.1 for DOS. When run against 5.1 files, TeXPerfect is pretty
robust. But, for this release, I commented out the lines that
check the version number. If you're using WP/Win, it can prepare
output in 5.1 format. I'd recommend you do that before using
TeXPerfect.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
B. Commercial:
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
Publish your books and documents using TeX or LaTeX with the help
of K-Talk's Publishing Companion (DOS). Translate WordPerfect or
Microsoft Word files to TeX or LaTeX.
- Typeset quality with the ease of word processing
- No need for training sessions or workshops
- Designed for documents of any length or complexity
Publishing Companion translates the following to plain TeX or
LaTeX:
- Automatic Indexes - Newspaper-style Columns
- Boxes - Non-break Hyphens & Spaces
- Centering - Outlines
- Endnotes - Page Numbering
- Flush Right - Paragraphs
- Footnotes - Parallel Columns
- Foreign Characters - Point Sizes
- Full Fonts - Redlining
- Horizontal Lines - Running Headers & Footers
- Indents - Soft Hyphens
- Justification - Strikeout
- Mail Merge - Superscripts & Subscripts
- MathEdit Math Equations - Table of Contents
- MS Word 6.0 Math Equations - Type Styles (bold, italic)
- WordPerfect Math Equations - Widows & Orphans on/off
With Publishing Companion, you don't have to learn TeX to produce
typeset quality TeX output. If you do know TeX, Publishing
Companion simplifies production.
Publishing Companion by K-Talk Communications, Inc. $249.00 (US)
K-Talk Products Information:
WWW home page http://www.ktalk.com/
FTP Site ftp.ktalk.com, directory /pub/ktalk
K-Talk Communications, Inc.
phone: (614) 488-8818 1287 King Ave, Suite 203
fax: (614) 488-9505 Columbus, OH 43212-2220
email: lisa@ktalk.com
citation end<<
However, there was a comment by a disappointed user:
>>citation begin
I had a very similar experience. Basically, conversion of my WP 5.0 and 5.1
documents could not be done with the original version of
Publishing Companion which I bought for $199 in 1993.
After I upgraded MathEdit to 3.0 earlier this year,
it worked no better. (I really had no interest in MathEdit,
but thought that the upgrade would fix the conversion problem.)
I then sent the WordPerfect file to be converted to K-Talk,
who sent me back the converted LaTeX file.
It still had all kinds of problems.
The following was our last correspondence on the subject:
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 14:56:19 PDT
> To: lisa@ktalk.com (Lisa)
> Subject: Re: WP -> TeX status
> Status: RO
> > From lisa@ktalk.com Sat Apr 29 07:35 PDT 1995
> > >
> > >I'm curious to know what progress has been made with this latest problem.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry to take so long to get back to you - Bob said that if you place an
> > upgrade order, he will take the time to make sure that all of the problems
> > you noted have been corrected.
> >
> Dear Lisa,
>
> let's see. The proposal is that if I upgrade 'pub' from a version that didn't
> work to a version that still doesn't work, K-Talk promises to get that version
> working.
There was no reply to that.
Tom Kuiper <kuiper@kuiper.jpl.nasa.gov>
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
TCI Software Research publishes Scientific Word and Scientific
WorkPlace. Included with these products is a conversion program that
will input RTF and output LaTeX. This conversion will correctly
convert Microsoft Word Equation Editor or MathType equations in the
RTF file to LaTeX. The conversion program is not available
separately.
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
The MathType equation editor, the full scale, commercial version
of WinWord's equation editor, is capable of converting its equations
to TeX format (plain TeX, not LaTeX; conversion to LaTeX is
planned for a future release).
MathType comes with a Word macro which will
convert all the equations in a Word document into TeX.
Design Science, 4028 Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803.
Phone 310-433-0685 Fax 310-433-6969
email - mtinfo@mathtype.com or mtsales@mathtype.com
WWW - http://www.mathtype.com/mathtype/
FTP - ftp.mathtype.com
I personally have MathType 3.1, and it IS able to convert from
its own format as well as from WinWord's EquationEditor format TO TeX.
The backward direction (TeX to MathType) is ONLY possible for
TeX code which was produced by MathType (containing a TeX
comment which allows MathType to see how it was generated).
It also IS possible to convert from MathType to EquationEditor.
***********************************************************************
The following information is cited as received with no guarantee on
useability - I could not test it myself and I have doubts
regarding import and export of WordPro formulas in Word or WordPerfect.
>>citation begin
Lotus WordPro has a good math editor that uses its own storage
format for stand-alone maths. They are also solved with the document,
of course.
I have been mailed by people that comment they bought WordPro just to
have this feature. Using some metacomments in the Latex source and a bit
of awk, it could be possible to do bidirectional equation modification in
any latex document, even if there is no good way to convert the rest.
The format that WordPro uses for the math save/load is a ".tex" file.
WordPro documents can be loaded and saved in Word, WordPerfect, ...
--
C.R. Fernandez Ruperez
Dept. LSI - Universidad del Pais Vasco
jipferur@si.ehu.es
citation end<<
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
OTHER PC WORDPROC -> LATEX
==========================
***********************************************************************
>>citation begin
From: Guido Milanese <MC1194@mclink.it>
This is to inform that there is a new program that converts
NotaBene files to LaTeX format. It is my NB4LATEX program, that
converts files from NotaBene4 (including ancient Greek and all
the symbols of logic) to LaTeX2e format. The program may be
downloaded from my homepage at the URL:
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3023/nb4latex.zip
This is also a little contribution to the issue ov 'visual'
editing for TeX. With this conversion program and its utilities,
you can use NotaBene for editing (seeing all the accents, the
Greek chars, etc.) and, at the very final stage of document
preparation, convert it to LaTeX2e.
It is a beta version. Please contact me for any problem.
Thanks, gm
citation end<<
remark by the FAQ maintainer:
Nota Bene's home page is <http://soho.ios.com/~notabene/index.html>
***********************************************************************
FrameMaker:
The site
<http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/software/framemaker.html>
contains templates which make conversion from Framemaker to LaTeX more
easy. It also supplies converters
from Framemaker to LaTeX and
from LaTeX to Framemaker
***********************************************************************
Dipl.-Ing. Wilfried Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Juelich GmbH, ISR
D-52425 Juelich, Germany
Tel. (+49) 2461 61 5570 ; Fax (G3+G4) (+49) 2461 61 8254
Homepage: http://www.kfa-juelich.de/
All opinions mentioned are strictly my own.
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