Can word open html

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is it possible to include normal HTML files in Word, so that they are shown in correct style etc. and not as normal text files?

As you manage your business, learning a complicated Web authoring tool may just be one ball too many. If you are a Microsoft Word user, you can still edit HTML files in Word, just as you would any other text-based file. This permits you to directly edit and change a HTML file without the use of a more expensive Web authoring tool.

Opening an HTML File

1. Open Word. Click the “File” tab on the ribbon. Click “Options” at the bottom of the drop-down menu.

2. Click «Advanced» in the left pane. In the right pane, scroll down to the General area. Select the «Confirm File Format Conversion on Open» check box and then click «OK.»

3. Click the “File” tab and then click “Open.” Browse to the Web page file to open and double-click the file name.

4. Click «Plain Text» from the Convert File dialog box and click «OK.» Your Web file opens as a plain text file showing the HTML code. Once you open the file, you can edit it and save the file as an HTML file.

Editing an HTML File

1. Open Word and your HTML file. Make any file edits you need. Use the Styles pane located on the Home tab to apply styles such as headings.

2. Click the “Insert” tab and then click “Picture” or “Clip Art” to add graphics. If you add graphics, remember to resize them in a program outside of Word since you can end up with two graphics instead of one when you upload the file to the Web.

3. Click the “Insert” tab and click the “Hyperlink” button in the Links group to add hyperlinks in your document. You can add links to email, Web pages and other documents you plan to upload.

4. Right-click the Quick Access Toolbar at the top left of the window and select «Customize Quick Access Toolbar.» Click the “Choose Commands From” drop-down arrow and select “All Commands.” Select “Web Page Preview,” click “Add” and then click “OK.” The button appears on your Quick Access Toolbar. Click the “Web Preview” button to see how your HTML file will look as a Web page.

5. Save your Web page by clicking “File” and then “Save.” Be sure to save the file as a Web page. The file extension needs to be HTM or HTML.

6. Transfer the edited Web page and its folder to the server. If you do not transfer its folder, you may not get graphics included.

Table des matières

• Generate binary .doc files. Are you kidding me ?

• Generate .docx files (Afterall, that’s XML, isn’t it ?) BANNED. I don’t have time to read a 7500 pages specification no-one is capable of implementing — not even Microsoft !

• Use the COM control to pilot Word on the server. BANNED. Microsoft strongly advises against this solution because Office is «unstable«: «Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not support, Automation of Microsoft Office applications from any unattended, non-interactive client application or component (including ASP, ASP.NET, DCOM, and NT Services), because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock when Office is run in this environment.» Doh!

• Generate RTF documents. ABANDONED. This format is not documented enough.

• OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice piloting. ABANDONED. I don’t want to mangle with OOo automation (Last time I checked, Python API was awful). And that would not be more reliable than MS Office.

• Expensive, commercial libraries. ABANDONED. I don’t want my applications to be too tied to a commercial API (which will be a pain in the ass to migrate to another API if the company goes bankrupt or causes commercial problems (phpdocx anyone ?)).

• Apache POI. ABANDONED. The main maintainer left the project.

• HTML generation: CHOSEN.

• Generating HTML is easy.

• Generating HTML documents is fast (magnitudes faster than using a COM control).

• Word can open HTML documents as if it was native Word files. Heck, you can just rename the html file to .doc and Word will open it !

• HTML documents are easy to style. Word accepts most HTML & CSS directives (font, size, color, tables, alignment…).

• MS Office also recognizes some Microsoft-specific HTML elements and CSS attributes which can be used to insert page number, table-of-content and so on…

• MS Office-specific HTML is more or less documented (here)

Trick:
Embedding images requires external files. Thus we cannot use a single HTML file. The solution is simple: generate several files (the main document in html, images…) then put everything in a single MIME 1.0 file. This is exactly what MS Word does when you save as mhtml (.mht) documents. Header & footers also must be put in a separate file: They will also be included in the MIME file.

Generating MIME 1.0 files is easy, even in php.

So our solution can be sum up as:

• Generate the main document in HTML, using some specific Word HTML elements.

• Include any additional data in seperate files (images, etc.)

• Pack all the files in a MIME 1.0 file.

• Serve this file as a .doc to the client.

Here are the different items you can/must use to build a Microsoft Office Word HTML document. These are only snippets, not full html documents. (Full HTML example documents will be in the «Examples» section.)

Basically, you generate a HTML document then serve it to the client as a .doc file (both in filename extension and in MIME type). Word will open this file as if it was a simple .doc file.

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
...
</html>

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
<head><title>Microsoft Office HTML Example</title>
<style> <!-- 
@page
{
    size: 21cm 29.7cm;  /* A4 */
    margin: 2cm 2cm 2cm 2cm; /* Margins: 2 cm on each side */
    mso-page-orientation: portrait;  
}
--></style>

• size: Page size.

• margin : Document margins.

• mso-page-orientation: portrait or landscape.

You are supposed to put pages (or group of pages) in a «section» (in a DIV), like this:

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
<head><title>Microsoft Office HTML Example</title>
<style><!-- 
@page
{
    size:21cm 29.7cmt;  /* A4 */
    margin:1cm 1cm 1cm 1cm; /* Margins: 2.5 cm on each side */
    mso-page-orientation: portrait;  
}
@page Section1 { }
div.Section1 { page:Section1; }
--></style>
</head>
<body>
<div class=Section1>
I'm page 1.
<br clear=all style='mso-special-character:line-break;page-break-before:always'>
I'm page 2.
</div>
</body>
</html>

• @page is used to set properties of the whole document.

• Each @page SectionX can be used to change the properties of a group of pages.

• Each page or group of pages must be put in a

  <div>

  (such as

  <div class=Section1>

  in our example. Feel free to create as many ‘sections’ as needed.

Caveat: Changing things like page orientation for a group or a specific page does not seem to work.

Word will accept most standard HTML and CSS features, such as headings (h1,h2,h3…), lists (ul,li), tables, colors… Go experiment yourself. Here are some examples:

basic_html.doc

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
<head><title>Microsoft Office HTML Example</title></head>
<body>
<h1>Title level 1</h1>
<h2>Title level 2</h2>
<h3>Title level 3</h3>
<p>Text in level 3</p>
<h2>2nd title level 2</h2>
<h3>Another level 3 title</h3>
 
List:
<ul>
<li>element 1</li>
<li>element 2</li>
<li>element 3</li>
  <ul>
  <li>element 4</li>
  <li>element 5</li>
  <li>element 6</li>
      <ul>
      <li>element 7</li>
      <li>element 8</li>
      </ul>
  </ul>
<li>element 9</li>
<li>element 10</li>
</ul>
 
<table width="100%">
<thead style="background-color:#A0A0FF;"><td nowrap>Column A</td><td nowrap>Column B</td><td nowrap>Column C</td></thead>
<tr><td>A1</td><td>B1</td><td>C1</td></tr>
<tr><td>A2</td><td>B2 Test with looooong text: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla sed sapien 
ac tortor porttitor lobortis. Donec velit urna, vulputate eu egestas eu, lacinia non dolor. Cras lacus diam, tempus 
sed ullamcorper a, euismod id nunc. Fusce egestas velit sed est fermentum tempus. Duis sapien dui, consectetur eu 
accumsan id, tristique sit amet ante.</td><td>C2</td></tr>
<tr><td>A3</td><td>B3</td><td>C3</td></tr>
</table>
 
</body>
</html>

Rendering in Word:

Note that these elements can later be styled, either using inline CSS (<p style="…">) or using CSS stylesheets (eg. you can style all h1 elements).

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
<head><title>Microsoft Office HTML Example</title>
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
<xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Print</w:View>
<w:Zoom>100</w:Zoom>
<w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml>
<![endif]-->
<body>
...

This will force the «Page» display mode when the file is opened. This section must be put just after the title, otherwise it will not work.
You can use 80 or 90 for Zoom if you want two pages to fit on screen.

<br clear=all style='mso-special-character:line-break;page-break-before:always'>

Put in your stylesheet:

td { page-break-inside:avoid; }

or apply to only specific cells:

<td style="page-break-inside:avoid;">...</td>

Put in your stylesheet:

tr { page-break-after:avoid; }

or apply to all TR of a table:

<tr style="page-break-after:avoid;">...</tr>

Computed fields include TOC (table of content), page refences and so on.

With Word, when you open a document, all computed fields are not updated by default. This has to be done manually by typing CTRL+A (to select the whole document) then press F9.

Thus, all computed fields you insert in your document will not show up unless the user manually updates them. This a problem related to Word itself. There is not simple solution to this.

<p class=MsoToc1> 
<!--[if supportFields]> 
<span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> 
TOC o "1-3" u 
<span style='mso-element:field-separator'></span> 
<![endif]--> 
<span style='mso-no-proof:yes'>Table of content - Please right-clic and choose "Update fields".</span> 
<!--[if supportFields]> 
<span style='mso-element:field-end'></span> 
<![endif]--> 
</p>

As you can’t predict the page numbers, the TOC needs to be manually updated by the user (Not a heavy burden, and I guess it’s possible to automate this by including a script in the file. I’ll investigate that later.)

TOC before update (upon file opening):

TOC after update: It reflects the different heading levels (h1,h2,h3…).

If you want to customize the TOC, have a look at the Microsoft documentation about this dynamic field.

You can reference another chapter or page rather easily. Here is an example: Set a bookmark in a document, and display the page where this bookmark is located.

Bookmarks: Simply put a html anchor:

<a name="MyBookmark"></a>Appendix

Then the reference:

For more information, see appendix at page 
<!--[if supportFields]>
<span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>PAGEREF MyBookmark h <span style='mso-element:field-end'></span>
<![endif]-->

Headers and footers must be put in a separate file, in a subdirectory. Example:

• mydocument.htm : The main document

• mydocument_filesheaderfooter.htm : The header and footer.

Note: It is important that the subdirectory name starts with the main document name (mydocument.htm → mydocument_files), otherwise Word will display a warning.

mydocument.htm

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
<head><title>Microsoft Office HTML Example</title>
<link rel=File-List href="mydocument_files/filelist.xml">
<style><!-- 
@page
{
    size:21cm 29.7cmt;  /* A4 */
    margin:1cm 1cm 1cm 1cm; /* Margins: 2.5 cm on each side */
    mso-page-orientation: portrait;  
    mso-header: url("mydocument_files/headerfooter.htm") h1;
    mso-footer: url("mydocument_files/headerfooter.htm") f1;	
}
@page Section1 { }
div.Section1 { page:Section1; }
p.MsoHeader, p.MsoFooter { border: 1px solid black; }
--></style>
</head>
<body>
<div class=Section1>
I'm page 1.
<br clear=all style='mso-special-character:line-break;page-break-before:always'>
I'm page 2.
</div>
</body>
</html>

Note that the file filelist.xml does not need to be present, but its declaration in the main document is mandatory.

mydocument_filesheaderfooter.htm

<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"= xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<body>
 
<div style="mso-element:header;" id="h1">
<p class=MsoHeader>Header</p>
</div>
 
<div style='mso-element:footer' id=f1>
<p class=MsoFooter><span class=SpellE>Footer</span> page <!--[if supportFields]><span
class=MsoPageNumber><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>PAGE <span style='mso-element:field-separator'></span></span><![endif]--><span
class=MsoPageNumber><span style='mso-no-proof:yes'>1</span></span><!--[if supportFields]><span
class=MsoPageNumber><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span
class=MsoPageNumber>/</span><!--[if supportFields]><span class=MsoPageNumber><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> NUMPAGES <span style='mso-element:field-separator'></span></span><![endif]--><span
class=MsoPageNumber><span style='mso-no-proof:yes'>1</span></span><!--[if supportFields]><span
class=MsoPageNumber><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->
</p>
</div>
 
</body>
</html>

After opening the document, don’t forget to go in «Page» display mode to see headers/footers.

This is what you get:

As for the Header/Footer, images must be put in a subdirectory. Then you just use the standard <img> html tag. Example:

• mydocument.htm : The main document

• mydocument_files/logo_google.png : The image to include.

mydocument.htm

<html xmlns:o='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' xmlns:w='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40'>
<head><title>Microsoft Office HTML Example</title>
<link rel=File-List href="mydocument_files/filelist.xml">
<style><!-- 
@page
{
    size:21cm 29.7cmt;  /* A4 */
    margin:1cm 1cm 1cm 1cm; /* Margins: 2.5 cm on each side */
    mso-page-orientation: portrait;  
}
@page Section1 { }
div.Section1 { page:Section1; }
p.MsoHeader, p.MsoFooter { border: 1px solid black; }
--></style>
</head>
<body>
<div class=Section1>
Here is an image:<br>
<img src="mydocument_files/logo_google.png">
</div>
</body>
</html>

Result in Word:

You can include a CSS stylesheet in the main html file: Word will use it.

You can style standard HTML elements (h1,h2,h3…), but you can also apply styles with the class attribute.

If you are trying to find the HTML code corresponding to a Word feature, here’s my advice:

• Create a blank document in Word.

• Type a few words and use the feature you need.

• Save as HTML page (Save as ⇒ Other format ⇒ Web page (*.htm,*.html) (NOT filtered))

Then open with you favorite text editor. You are most likely to find the relevant HTML/CSS code.

Once you have created your html document with its associated files (headers/footer, images…), you need to pack them in a single mhtml (MIME) file.

Let’s take an example: A document with header/footer and an image. The files contained in this zip (mime_example.zip) are:

• mydocument.htm : The main document

• mydocument_files/headerfooter.htm : The header and footer

• mydocument_files/smiley.gif : An image.

Building a MIME file only requires to encode these files in base64 and add a header for each one:

mime_example.doc

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_ZROIIZO.ZCZYUACXV.ZARTUI"
 
------=_NextPart_ZROIIZO.ZCZYUACXV.ZARTUI
Content-Location: file:///C:/mydocument.htm
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"
 
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DQo=
 
------=_NextPart_ZROIIZO.ZCZYUACXV.ZARTUI
Content-Location: file:///C:/mydocument_files/headerfooter.htm
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"
 
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------=_NextPart_ZROIIZO.ZCZYUACXV.ZARTUI
Content-Location: file:///C:/mydocument_files/smiley.gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Type: image/gif
 
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AO25ALGMA/3cFmBKFuaZAM+NAcvJwHVjN/LEAKRrBJpwBPjPBu2uAJ99BPK/AGxLB6+EA+qpALGN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 
------=_NextPart_ZROIIZO.ZCZYUACXV.ZARTUI--

Please note:

• The boundary can be any string you want, as long as you can’t find it in data. (Using a dot is a safe bet because base64 data can’t contain dots.)

• Take extra care of dashes before and after the boundary marker.

• Take extra care of empty lines. They are important.

• You can use other encodings than base64 (such as quoted-printable), but base64 is a safe bet and works on all kind of files.

This file can be renamed to .doc and opened in Word:

Amusing fact: mhtml (MIME) documents are usually smaller than their true .doc counterparts. For example, the previous mime_example.doc (which is a MIME/mhtml file) is 5216 bytes long. Resaved in true .doc format, it’s 24064 bytes.

Here is a basic MIME 1.0 class which will help you generate the mhtml files:

class mime10class
{
    private $data;
    const boundary='----=_NextPart_ERTUP.EFETZ.FTYIIBVZR.EYUUREZ';
    function __construct() { $this->data="MIME-Version: 1.0nContent-Type: multipart/related; boundary="".self::boundary.""nn"; }
    public function addFile($filepath,$contenttype,$data)
    {
        $this->data = $this->data.'--'.self::boundary."nContent-Location: file:///C:/".preg_replace('!\!', '/', $filepath)."nContent-Transfer-Encoding: base64nContent-Type: ".$contenttype."nn";
        $this->data = $this->data.base64_encode($data)."nn";
    }
    public function getFile() { return $this->data.'--'.self::boundary.'--'; }
}

It’s rather simple: Add files with addFile(), then get the final mhtml/MIME1.0 document with getFile().

Example:

header('Content-Type: application/msword');
header('Content-disposition: filename=mydocument.doc')
$doc = New mime10class();
$doc->addFile('mydocument.htm','text/html; charset="utf-8"','Hello, world !');
$doc->addFile('subdiranotherfile.htm','text/html; charset="utf-8"','Hi there.');
echo $doc->getFile();

The .mht file must be served to the client with the following HTTP headers:

Content-Type: application/msword
Content-disposition: attachment; filename=myfile.doc

Yes, we use «.doc» in order not to confuse the final user. Word will recognize this is a .mht file and will open it accordingly.

Note that:

Content-disposition: attachment; filename=myfile.doc

will force download, but:

Content-disposition: filename=myfile.doc

will allow the user to choose between «open» or «save».

Full, working HTML documents which load correctly in Microsoft Word, using many Word features: Styling, tables, headers & footers, page format, table-of-content, images…

I have implemented this system in a professional environment, and we are able generate a 70 pages database-driven dynamically-filled document with lots of tables and references in less than 5 seconds. (The document contains no images; The server runs Apache+php+Oracle. Document templates are written in Smarty.)

The performances are excellent, much better than what I expected.

• Using a markup language (Markdown ? Textile ?…) which generates HTML may ease the creation and maintenance of templates.

• With php, the use of a templating engine like Smarty should help to easily create and maintain document templates without touching php code too much. Template inclusion can help to create — for example — standard headers for all documents.

• Serving files using gzip compression may improve user experience (our mime_example.doc above goes from 5216 bytes to 2569 bytes with default gzip compression).

Table of Contents

1. How do I make a Word document into HTML?
2. How do you save something as HTML?
3. Is it better to use HTML or plain text?
4. How do I save HTML as plain text?
5. How do you convert Word document into HTML?
6. How to convert a HTML file to a Word document?
7. How can I convert a PDF to HTML?
8. What is the best PDF to HTML converter?