Convert from PageMaker 6.0 to Microsoft Word

[tlemons]

Hi

I need to convert serveral dozen PageMaker 6.0 files to Microsoft Word format. How can I do this?

Thanks!
tl

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, tlemons,

It's possible but very messy and not recommended.

Select the text and use File -> Export -> RTF for the text.
The graphics can be put into Word from their original sources.

I have to ask why you need to do this? Word is a fancy and not very good text editor - PM is a top page layout application.


Iechyd da! John
21:29 25/01/03 GMT

 

[tlemons]

Thanks for the reply. I know, why would someone move 'down' to MS Word? The answer is that ~8 PageMaker files are part of a document collection now used by an office staff who only has Microsoft Word expertise. Word is appropriate for their need; learning PageMaker is not a useful exercise for them.

Is there any way to mass-convert these files from PM to Word?

Thanks!
tl

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, tlemons,

> Is there any way to mass-convert these files from PM to Word?

In a Word, No. Only what I said above.

Iechyd da! John
02:44 28/01/03 GMT

 

[Vida]

In book publishing, we go back and forth all the time. Word is a more powerful word processor. We make revisions in Word, assign styles. We 'pour' the files into PM, and on a good day, our more elaborate Styles in the style sheet (with the same names) hold, and the document only needs a little tweaking. It is mostly formatted. At the end of the job, we extract the text back out for clients to make revisions on. They don't mess around in PM at all. It really works, and is not a bad thing, especially when laying out hundreds of pages.

If you have Styles in PM, which I should hope you do, make a template in Word. You can even make a macro for stuff you want to clean up (margins, remove extra spaces etc.) When you extract your RTF, open it in Word. Apply your template and run your macro. Good time to check spelling, too. Add page breaks. It should not take much time, and your Word documents will be clear, if not as pretty. If they want a fancy layout, they will need to learn PM. But for handling content and maintaining hierarchy in headings, etc. Word is fine.

 

[tlemons]

Thanks, John. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. It's good to have my fears confirmed, at least. And, I know that PM is on a higher plane than word. But it doesn't make sense for this group of users, who already know Word, to also learn PM, just to edit 6 document files.

Thanks
tl

 

[111011]

To convert regular PM documents to word, (without tables) a good way I find is to convert to pdf and if you have acrobat writer 5.0 export it as an rtf file. this holds on to format and it works really well. unfortunately if you have tables in your file the table is lost. the data in the tables is preserved but it is nolonger in a table and may be out of sequence.