Wikka Filters
Importing/exporting from Wikka to other formatsSee also: WikkaToPDF
I was thinking that one of the conditions that might allow a wiki engine to survive in the long run, besides WikkaInternationalization i18n and l10n might be its external integration with existing document formats.
Many people I've been talking to about Wikka and wikis in general were disappointed by the fact that "they couldn't copy and paste formatted text from their favorite word processor" (I omit the name of the word processor) or were reluctant to learn a new syntax.
Giving the user the ability to safely import an RTF file (maybe passing through HTML) might drastically improve the visibility of our project. I know that Andrea's uniwakka already allows you to export to LaTeX and OpenOffice, and import/export bibtex files - which I find just great if you already use LaTex and OpenOffice. But for the average user (think of people willing to use a wiki as the engine to run their site and with a lot of content already available in DOC or RTF format) non only RTF might be more relevant, but the ability to import and not only export becomes crucial.
Ideas for possible import filters
- HTML (already possible to use safe html in wiki pages, but see my note below)
- RTF
- (LaTeX)
Ideas for possible export filters
- HTML (kidding..)
- WikkaToPDF PDF (we might just implement an optional php class for generating PDFs on the fly)
- RTF
- (LaTex)
- Text (see script for wakka.
Does anyone know about existing rtf2wiki projects or, more generally, projects of filters to convert wiki syntax to and from existing formats?
Maybe a basic action to import an HTML document without bothering with the source code (many users don't even know where to look to find the source of a HTML document or do not know that there is a source) could also be of some help.
Your thoughts?
-- DarTar
document_wakka.dot
Below is a link to a macro/template to convert a document Microsoft© Word 97 or Word 2000 into the Wakka format. It was obtained (as was most of this text, in the French) from the wikini site.
A work of adaptation by David Delon, starting from Macro_word.dot.
Copyright © 2002, David Delon distributed under licence LPG.
Copyright © 2002, Alexis Dupont-Rock distributed under licence LPG. (might be translation from french of GPL).
INSTRUCTIONS: Copy "document_wakka.dot" to the directory in which templates are for your version of Microsoft Word. Often these are found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\OtherDocuments or C:\Windows\Application Data\Mircosoft\models. (Look for the Normal.dot file to find the exact location).
To use it, start Word.
Choose File->New->Other Documents(Or General)->Document_wakka.dot.
Type text using the styles suggested: normal, list, underlined , bold, title 1, title 2 and title 3.
To generate text into the Wakka format in a new document click on the symbol W! beside the file icon.
Limitations: It works, but the instruction code that is generated when the macro is activated is in French. It means "The transformed text was copied to the Clipboard: You can place it in wikka using paste (Ctrl-V). Good Luck!" However I have no insights into how to edit this into English in the .dot file (my attempts failed miserably).
You can obtain the file here: document_wakka.dot (right-click to save the file)
--GmBowen
There is also WinWord2WikkaWikiAction. Dunno if it's the same macro as above or not. In english though. :)
Some references on importing/exporting RTF
- rtf2htm
The RTF to HTML convertor converts RTF files (in Windows-1250 encoding) to HTML file (in ISO-8859-2 encoding) and here is another convertor...http://martinmv.wz.cz/
- Text_wiki
The Text_Wiki package allows you to transform text structured using Wiki rules into any defined target output format, including HTML, LaTeX, RTF, PDF, and more.
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