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. To create a wiki page from a Microsoft Office document, do the following:


 * 1) (On your computer:) Download and install Open Office. This takes about five minutes and is free.
 * 2) Open one of the following Open Office programs by clicking on your Start button, then Programs/All Programs, and click on OpenOffice at the bottom of the list of programs:
 * 3) *to import a Microsoft Office document or HTML file, open Open Office Writer
 * 4) *to import an Excel spreadsheet, open Open Office Calc.
 * 5) Once the program is open (Writer for Word documents or HTML files, Calc for Excel spreadsheets), open your document in the program by clicking "File," then "Open," and locate the your document or spreadsheet on your computer or storage device.
 * 6) Once the document is open in the Open Office program, click File on the menu, and then click Export.
 * 7) The "Export" window will appear. First type a name for the file. Next, in the "File Format" dropdown, choose MediaWiki.
 * 8) Choose a folder in which you want to save the file, and click Save. Remember where you saved the file.
 * 9) A text docment (.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.
 * 10) (Online at Wiki.FamilySearch.org:) Open the page in which you wish to import the document or spreadsheet, or create a new page, and open the edit box by clicking on the "Edit" tab. This will open the edit page. At the top of the edit page is a tan colored bar containing several icons called the "Editor Toolbar."
 * 11) Click on the "Wikitext" button on the editor toolbar, in the lefthand corner, [Note: You do not need to do this if you have the rich text editor disabled in your preferences].
 * 12) (On your computer:) Select all of the contents in the text document by holding down the "Ctrl" key while tapping the "A" key once, and copy the highlighted text by holding down the "Ctrl" key while tapping the "C" key once.
 * 13) (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, left clicking, then right click where the cursor appears. While holding down the "Ctrl" button on the keyboard, tap the "V" key on the keyboard. (See the "Special Instructions" section below for additional help regarding tables.)
 * 14) At the bottom of the screen, 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 on "Wikitext" 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.