Help:How to Convert a Microsoft Office Document into Wiki Format

Some contributors wish to import information from existing documents or spreadsheets. This is especially helpful when trying to import tables, or keep current formatting from pre-existing documents or spreadsheets. The process is time-intensive and advanced. Before following these steps, consider if it may take less time to re-create a table than to import an existing one. To create a wiki page from a Microsoft Office document, do the following:


 * 1) (On your computer:) Download and install Open Office. This is free, but usually takes a few minutes (depending on the speed of your Internet connection). The latest version of Open Office does not export wikitext, so you need to download version 2.4, for example, which you can find in several websites, including this one: www.brothersoft.com/d.php
 * 2) Once Open Office is installed on your computer, open the following Open Office program by clicking on your Start button, then Programs/All Programs, and click on OpenOffice at the bottom of the list of the programs:
 * 3) *to import a Microsoft Office document or HTML file, open Open Office Writer
 * 4) Once the program is open (Writer for Word documents or HTML files), open your document in the program by clicking File, then Open, and locate the the document you want to copy text from on your computer or storage device.
 * 5) Once the document is open in the Open Office program, click the File menu, and then click Export.
 * 6) The "Export" window will appear. First type a name for the file in the export window. Next, in the "File Format" dropdown, select MediaWiki.
 * 7) At the top of the "Export" window, choose a folder in which you want to save the file, and click Save. Remember where you saved the file. You may want to write down the location you saved the file.
 * 8) A text document (.txt) will be created in the location you specified in step 6. Locate the document you just created. Open that document by double clicking on it. It will open in NotePad or another text editor.
 * 9) (Online at Wiki.FamilySearch.org:) Open the page in which you wish to import the document or create a new page, and open the edit box by clicking on the Edit option for that page or article. This will open the editing window. At the top of the editing window is a tan colored bar containing several icons (see below):[[Image:Editor Toolbar.png|Image:Editor_Toolbar.png]]
 * 10) Click on the Wikitext button on the editor toolbar, in the lefthand corner of the toolbar (see below): [Note: You do not need to do this if you have the rich text editor disabled in your preferences]. [[Image:Editor ToolbarWT.png|Image:Editor_ToolbarWT.png]]
 * 11) (On your computer:) Select all of the contents in the text document by holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the A key once. Copy the highlighted text by holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the C key once.
 * 12) (Online at FamilySearch.org:) Paste the copied text into the wiki authoring window in the location you want the text or table to appear by placing your cursor in the appropriate location in the body of the text, and left clicking with your mouse to indicate where the text or table should appear.
 * 13) While holding down the Ctrl button on the keyboard, press the V key on the keyboard. (See the "Special Instructions" section below for additional help regarding tables.)
 * 14) After pasting the text into the editing window, scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and click Save page. The formatted text and/or tables will appear on the Wiki page.

Special Instructions

To format a table after pasting the text:


 * 1) Click edit to edit the page.
 * 2) Click the Wikitext button in the lefthand corner of the editor toolbar.
 * 3) Search the document for each occurance of this line: {| class="prettytable" The line will appear once for each table that is in the document. This will widen the table and add a border.
 * 4) Change the line to read as follows: {| width="75%" border="1" [Note: You can change the percentage value for "width" to make your table wider or narrower.]