Import large Word document into Flare

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garneli59
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:03 am

Import large Word document into Flare

Post by garneli59 »

Our project has a 1,000 page document with contributions from multiple authors. The document was constructed in Word without mapping inline styles in mind. We were recently tasked to import content from this huge Word document into one project in MadCap Flare. :shock: In this scenario, it sounds like the Copy + Paste and then reapply styles in Flare approach might be better than having to deal with a complicated and massive Word cleanup before attempting to convert using Flare import wizard (and then dealing with post processing errors and gaps that may occur). I think another team is taking the lead on this, and our team will eventually be asked to merge our portion of this Word content into the project. Has anyone out there experienced something similar? If yes, can you provide advice on the best approach for this task? THANK YOU in advance!!
robdocsmith
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Location: Queensland, Australia

Re: Import large Word document into Flare

Post by robdocsmith »

Not sure of the type of document this is, how many graphics are included, what sort of field you're in or what your experience level is with Flare.

There might be some value in a little cleanup in Word first. At the least for heading levels if they haven't been applied correctly. Don't worry about the appearance of the heading, but to make sure the correct levels are there. You'll use those to automatically chop the document into Flare content. Importing as one long document and then chopping it up in Flare may prove to be the slowest route. You could do a trial run first of an import and see what happens. I've had quite messy documents work quite well (and vice versa, well formed documents that have been a pain to import).

If there are multiple graphics in the document I hope you have access to the original files. If their are copious Word drawn diagrams you'll likely need to recreate those outside of Flare.

I'd get some agreement from your project leads as to how atomised they want content fragments. A file per H3, per H2, per H1 etc. That applied structure can then inform your TOC and make that stage easier.

I presume you'll have a global project supplying CSS and other formatting? If so, as you continue to clean up the Flare content, you'll probably need to have sight of a style guide to make sure the way your styles are applied are the same as the way other groups are doing it. Particularly if there are complicated style elements - I have caution notices that are a couple of nested DIVs for example.

Good luck!

Rob
ChoccieMuffin
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Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Import large Word document into Flare

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Working with a large Word document means you are almost certainly going to have to have several attempts at importing until you get to something you like, but I agree with all the advice, you really should do as much tidying up in Word before importing as you can manage, because it'll make your life a lot easier. Copying and pasting 1000 pages and reformatting them all manually could be a real nightmare. Headings will at the very least let you split up the massive document consistently. Best of luck!
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