Word + win32ole - how to find formatting of a word?

ruby-talk
1

HI! I'm trying to use Ruby and win32ole to parse a Word document. So far, I'm able to extract the style and text of each paragraph. That works great to convert it into individual divs (in the HTML CSS sense).

Now, inside the paragraphs, there are certain words that have special formatting (for e.g. the name of a command which is in monospace) - I'm trying to find how to extract those special cases. Does anyone know how to achieve that?

Appreciate your help - thanks!

Cheers,
Mohit.
10/25/2008 | 4:33 PM.

2

HI! I'm trying to use Ruby and win32ole to parse a Word document. So
far, I'm able to extract the style and text of each paragraph. That
works great to convert it into individual divs (in the HTML CSS sense).

Now, inside the paragraphs, there are certain words that have special
formatting (for e.g. the name of a command which is in monospace) - I'm
trying to find how to extract those special cases. Does anyone know how
to achieve that?

Dear Mohit,

you could save the Word file as an html and then extract the relevant information...
I did that using OpenOffice and got a file containing the font information in the following form.

<BODY LANG="en-US" DIR="LTR">
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">A command in <FONT FACE="Linux Libertine">Linux
Libertine</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">A text in <FONT FACE="Bitstream Charter, serif">Bitstream
Charter</FONT></P>
</BODY>

If you read in the text of that file as a String, you can then find the relevant bits using regexps.

Best regards,

Axel

···

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3

Axel Etzold wrote:

HI! I'm trying to use Ruby and win32ole to parse a Word document. So far, I'm able to extract the style and text of each paragraph. That works great to convert it into individual divs (in the HTML CSS sense).

Now, inside the paragraphs, there are certain words that have special formatting (for e.g. the name of a command which is in monospace) - I'm trying to find how to extract those special cases. Does anyone know how to achieve that?
    
Dear Mohit,

you could save the Word file as an html and then extract the relevant information...
I did that using OpenOffice and got a file containing the font information in the following form.

<BODY LANG="en-US" DIR="LTR">
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">A command in <FONT FACE="Linux Libertine">Linux
Libertine</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">A text in <FONT FACE="Bitstream Charter, serif">Bitstream
Charter</FONT></P>
</BODY>
  
Hi Axel

Thanks for replying! Converting to HTML and working with that is my last option actually. In a well-written document, I found that using Word to return style information about the paragraph is a lot less work and relatively easy to work with. I guess it's time to consider your suggestion!

Cheers,
Mohit.
10/26/2008 | 5:44 PM.

4

Mohit Sindhwani wrote:

Axel Etzold wrote:

HI! I'm trying to use Ruby and win32ole to parse a Word document. So far, I'm able to extract the style and text of each paragraph. That works great to convert it into individual divs (in the HTML CSS sense).

Now, inside the paragraphs, there are certain words that have special formatting (for e.g. the name of a command which is in monospace) - I'm trying to find how to extract those special cases. Does anyone know how to achieve that?
    
Dear Mohit,
you could save the Word file as an html and then extract the relevant information...
I did that using OpenOffice and got a file containing the font information in the following form.

Hi Axel

Thanks for replying! Converting to HTML and working with that is my last option actually. In a well-written document, I found that using Word to return style information about the paragraph is a lot less work and relatively easy to work with. I guess it's time to consider your suggestion!

Actually, after digging around, I found that this gets me somewhere there:
words = doc.Words
words.each {|w|
  index += 1
  ft = w.Font.Name
  ftHash[ft] = 1
}

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,
Mohit.
10/26/2008 | 9:14 PM.

5

-------- Original-Nachricht --------

Datum: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:14:53 +0900
Von: Mohit Sindhwani <mo_mail@onghu.com>
An: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Betreff: Re: Word + win32ole - how to find formatting of a word?

Mohit Sindhwani wrote:
> Axel Etzold wrote:
>>> HI! I'm trying to use Ruby and win32ole to parse a Word document.
>>> So far, I'm able to extract the style and text of each paragraph.
>>> That works great to convert it into individual divs (in the HTML CSS
>>> sense).
>>>
>>> Now, inside the paragraphs, there are certain words that have
>>> special formatting (for e.g. the name of a command which is in
>>> monospace) - I'm trying to find how to extract those special cases.
>>> Does anyone know how to achieve that?
>>>
>>
>> Dear Mohit,
>> you could save the Word file as an html and then extract the
>> relevant information...
>> I did that using OpenOffice and got a file containing the font
>> information in the following form.
>>
>
> Hi Axel
>
> Thanks for replying! Converting to HTML and working with that is my
> last option actually. In a well-written document, I found that using
> Word to return style information about the paragraph is a lot less
> work and relatively easy to work with. I guess it's time to consider
> your suggestion!
>
Actually, after digging around, I found that this gets me somewhere there:
words = doc.Words
words.each {|w|
  index += 1
  ft = w.Font.Name
  ftHash[ft] = 1
}

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,
Mohit.
10/26/2008 | 9:14 PM.

Dear Mohit,

you're welcome :slight_smile:
It's always nice to best answer one's own questions , isn't it ? Thanks for the info !

Best regards,

Axel

···

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6

Axel Etzold wrote:

you're welcome :slight_smile:
It's always nice to best answer one's own questions , isn't it ? Thanks for the info !
  

Thanks for your reply again! Yes, it's good to find the answer yourself and then share it :slight_smile:

I find that Win32ole is quite powerful, just that it needs a little looking around to work with it.

Cheers,
Mohit.
10/27/2008 | 11:19 AM.