Importing Word Files

You can import Microsoft Word files into a new project or an existing one.

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Preparing Word Documents

When you want to import Word files keep in mind that the cleaner a Word document is before import, the cleaner the documentation is after the import process. A clean document means: using an error-free Word document, removing any inline formatting, and using heading, paragraph, and/or character styles in Word.

Example This example illustrates a scenario of what to avoid when attempting to import a Word document.

Imagine a Word file where no Word heading styles are used, but the heading text is styled using inline (or local) formatting. All the content includes several different subjects is in one long document. The following shows part of the original Word document.

Let's say this Word document has been added to the project by dragging and dropping it into the Content Explorer, so the Import Microsoft Word Wizard displays. Since no Word styles were applied, Flare detected no heading styles to map to, and only the List Paragraph style shows in the Paragraph style options.

There are several actions to explore, but some wizard options to pursue might be:

Styles > Style Mapping If the Discard MS Word styles button is selected, this would keep Word’s inline formatting but map it to Flare’s style.

This is what it would look like imported into Flare:

Advanced Options > Styles If the "Create new stylesheet" option is selected along with the "Remove inline formatting" option, this would remove the local formatting styles from Word and new styles would get added to a new stylesheet in the Flare project.

This is what it would look like imported into Flare:

In each case, since the content lives in one document with no heading styles, the Word file converts to one HTML file in Flare. If the intent is to have separate topics for each heading from the Word document, then there is some clean-up work to do. New HTML topics would have to be created in Flare, and the content would have to be copied into the topics manually. Alternatively, the original Word files could be cleaned up and then re-imported into Flare.

The bottom line is, having a clean Word document to begin with results in cleaner documentation after the import.

Specifying Custom File Names for Word Imports

Before you begin, please note you can control the file names given to new topics that are created from imported Word documents. To do this, apply “Private” field codes to the appropriate headings in the Word documents where new topics will be created (see Specifying Custom File Names for Word Imports). You also have the option of renaming the new topic file names after the import process is finished (see Renaming Topics).

How to Import Word Documents

The following steps describe how to import Word files using the Import Word Wizard. However, you also have the option of adding a Word import file (see Adding a Word Import File) and then using the Word Import Editor (see Word Import Editor—Import and Re-Import).

Select Project > Import > MS Word Documents.
In the wizard, choose either Import into a new project (and complete the fields below) or Import into this project. However, if you do not have a project currently open, the file(s) will automatically be imported into a new project.
- Project name Type a name for the new Flare project that will be created after you perform the import.
- Project folder Accept the default location for the new project or click to find and select a folder.
- Output type Select the primary target for your project.
  
  A target is a file that generates output from your project. You want your output to look and behave in a certain way, but not all authors have the same audience or work for the same company with the same needs and the same computer networking setup. Therefore, Flare lets you choose the best type of output(s) for your needs. A target file is used for each instance of an output type. And you can have many targets in your project (e.g., eight targets using PDF, two targets using HTML5). See Determining the Output Type and Step 4: Developing Targets.
  
  This page of the wizard lets you select a primary target as you get your project off the ground. This means that—although you can use more than one target for your project—you might use one target most of the time. By selecting a primary target, you will be able to use shortcut buttons to build, view, and publish its output more quickly. Also, when you open topics in the XML Editor, they will be displayed by default with the styles and other specifications associated with the primary target. However, you can use the Layout and Medium drop-downs in the local toolbar of the XML Editor to view topics with other settings.
  
  Do not worry if you're not yet sure of the best output type for your project. No matter which output type you select now, you can always change the primary target later.

Click Add file to choose Word documents. You can also select other options as necessary.

	This removes the selected file(s) from the list.
	This moves the selected file or folder lower in the list (if you have more than one to import).
	This moves the selected file or folder higher in the list (if you have more than one to import). The file at the top is used for the name of the Flare TOC that is created as a result of the import. Also, the order determines how the imported files are arranged in the TOC as topics.
	This opens the file that is selected in the list.

Note DOCX is Microsoft Word's platform-independent, open XML format. You must have Microsoft Word 2007 or later installed in order to import this file type. You also must have Word installed on your computer, as opposed to using the feature on the Options dialog (File > Options) to import without Microsoft Office.

(Optional) On the left, select Styles. You can use this page to associate the project with an external stylesheet, discard the styles from the Word files, map the Word styles to Flare styles, and choose which styles should be the start of new topics. (Optional) On the left, select Styles. You can use this page for various style settings.
Associate a Stylesheet

This is purely optional. You can choose an existing stylesheet by clicking . After doing this, styles from that stylesheet become available in the mapping drop-down fields below, so that you can map Word styles to those from the stylesheet you chose.

Style Mapping
- Discard MS Word styles By default, styles from the Word documents are mapped in such a way that their names are retained and appended to Flare styles. However, you can click this button, which will map to the Flare style but not keep the Word style name or its formatting.
- Restore defaults If you change your mind, you can click this button, which will once again retain the Word style names.
  
  Example In your Word document, second-level headings use the “Heading 2” style. But in Flare, it is named “h2.” So when the Word style is mapped to the Flare style, the resulting name will be “h2.Heading2.”
  
  If you click Discard MS Word styles, the mapping remains in place, but now the resulting name will be “h2” and any formatting from Word for that style is not retained.
  
  If you click Restore defaults, the mapping will once again result in the name “h2.Heading2” and its formatting will be retained.
- Paragraph/Character You can expand these sections to see the styles found in the Word document(s).
  
  In these sections, you can map a paragraph or character style from the Word document(s) to another style. Click the drop-down in a cell to select a style. Flare styles are listed in the top part of the drop-down menu, while Word styles are listed on the bottom.
  
  If you want to specify that new topics should start with certain paragraph styles, simply click the check box next to that style. The h1 style is selected by default (most authors start new topics on heading styles), but you can choose any paragraph-level styles that you like.
Preview

When you select a style row in either the Paragraph or Character section, a preview is shown at the bottom so you can see how it looks. The design of the original Word style is shown on the left, and the look of the mapped style is shown on the right.
(Optional) On the left, select Advanced Options. You can use this page to set various options. Click the quick Help buttons next to each section for more information.
Styles
- Create new stylesheet This creates a new stylesheet based on the settings you choose.
  
  If you disable this option, the styles resulting from the import will be added to the project’s primary stylesheet.
  
  Note If you choose to create a stylesheet when importing Word documents into a new project, that stylesheet will be automatically selected in the project properties. If you then open the Word Import Editor, deselect the option to create a new stylesheet, and reimport the documents, that stylesheet will continue to exist in the project.
- [Inline formatting]
  - Keep inline formatting This retains inline formatting found in the Word documents.
  - Convert inline formatting to CSS styles This converts inline styles found in the Word documents to styles in the Flare project.
  - Remove inline formatting This removes any inline formatting found in the Word documents, displaying it as regular text instead.
Topics
- Automatically set topic title If this option is enabled, the properties setting for the topic title automatically uses the first heading in the topic. Therefore, if you change the heading text in the future, the topic title changes automatically as well. If this option is disabled, the properties setting for the topic title explicitly uses the first topic heading text found during the import, and it remains so unless you manually change it later. See Changing Topic Titles.
- Avoid empty topics threshold Select this option if you want to ensure that new topics are not created when large sections are found in the Word documents without any content. Enter the maximum number of empty character spaces allowed in a topic. If this number is exceeded, Flare will not create a new topic from that empty space.
- Split long topics threshold Select this option if you have long sections in your source documents and want to make sure that they are converted to multiple topics (rather than one very long topic). Enter the maximum number of characters to be converted to a topic before a new topic is created. Flare will break the topic at the nearest paragraph to the threshold value. That way, a new topic will not start in the middle of a sentence or word, but at the beginning of a paragraph.
- Add continued links Select this option to place a "Topic Continued" link at the bottom of pages when a long topic has been split into multiple ones.
- Add continued from links Select this option to place a "Topic Continued From" link at the top of continued pages when a long topic has been split into multiple ones.
  - (continued in/from {title}) Use these fields to specify the format for the "(continued in)" and "(continued from)" links. Flare provides a cross-reference format for you—(continued in {title}) or (continued from {title}). With this cross-reference format, the link contains the words "continued in" or "continued from" within parentheses, followed by the text of the first paragraph in the connected topic. If you do not want the link to use that particular text, you have a couple of options. First, in Flare, you could manually enter a heading in each topic that is connected to another topic included in the split. That text will be used in the link instead (after you update the cross-references in Flare). Another option is to modify the format by clicking the Edit button. For more information see Cross-References and Editing Cross-Reference Style Formats.
- Approximate filename length Enter the maximum number of characters to use for naming topic files. The default is 24.
Tables
- Convert all tables to "auto-fit to contents" Select this option if you want to automatically set tables to "Auto-Fit to Contents" when they are imported into Flare. This ensures that column widths are not specified on the imported tables.
- Set first row of each table as a header row Select this option if you want Flare to convert the first row of every table into a header row. This makes styling tables more efficient. If you do not select this option, only tables that already have header rows in the Word document will become header rows in Flare. Tables without header rows will be imported just as they are.
  
  Example You have a Word document with two tables.
  
  In the first table, the first row has been set to repeat as a header row.
  
  In the second table, the first row has not been set to repeat as a header row.
  
  First, you import the Word document but you do not enable the option to set the first row of each table as a header row. As a result, the first row in the first table continues to be a header row, just as it was in the Word document. And the first row in the second table continues to be a regular row, just as it was in the Word document.
  
  Next, you import the Word document but you do enable the option to set the first row of each table as a header row. As a result, the first row of each table is now a header row.
- [Table styles]
  - Create CSS table styles as regular stylesheet This finds table formatting in the Word documents and creates styles accordingly in the regular stylesheet in Flare.
  - Convert table styles to Flare table styles This finds table formatting in the Word documents and creates a special table stylesheets accordingly in Flare.
    
    Note To use this feature, the table must have been created in Microsoft Word 2007 or later. Also, open the Options dialog (File > Options), select the General tab, and make sure that Import/Export Word Files without MS Office is disabled.
  - Apply a selected table stylesheet to all imported tables This lets you select an existing Flare table stylesheet and apply it to all imported tables.
  - Remove all table styles This removes styling from all tables found in the Word documents. You can keep them as plain tables in Flare or apply styles to them later.
Lists

Use standard list style type This will use standard bullets (e.g., square, disc) and numbering (e.g., decimal), whether they were used in the Word documents or not.

If this is not enabled, lists are imported with the characters or symbols used for the lists in the Word documents. However, these are contained within span tags in the Flare topics. This allows you to keep special elements, (e.g., Wingdings) that you might have used in Word for custom lists.

Example You have a Word document with lists, and it looks like this:

If the option to use standard list style types is enabled, the topic in Flare will look like this:

If the option is disabled, the topic will look like this:

Equations

Convert equations to MathML When importing Microsoft Word files that contain equations, you can convert them from Office Math Markup Language (the format used in Word) to MathML (the web standard and Flare format). If you disable this option, equations from Word are converted to images.

Note To use this feature, the equation must have been created in Microsoft Word 2007 or later. Also, open the Options dialog (File > Options), select the General tab, and make sure that Import/Export Word Files without MS Office is disabled.

Page Layouts

Create a page layout for each section header/footer Select this option if you want Flare to create new page layouts when you import Word documents that have section breaks, along with headers or footers. For each new section in the Word document that has a different header or footer than the previous section, Flare creates a unique page layout. After the import is finished, you can open and edit the page layouts if necessary (see Page Layouts and Editing Pages). You can then create chapter breaks for your print-based output and assign these page layouts to the different topics in the output (see Specifying Chapter and Page Layout Breaks).

Page Breaks
- Preserve and create new topics on page breaks This keeps any page breaks found in the Word documents.
- Preserve and convert to MadCap page breaks This keeps any page breaks found in the Word documents, but it will convert them to the special page break tags (MadCap|pageBreak) used by Flare. This page break element displays as a gray bar in the XML Editor, but it is not shown in the output; a page break simply occurs at that spot.
- Ignore page breaks This will not keep any page breaks found in the Word documents.
Reimport
- Link generated files to source files Enable this if you want to continue editing in Word and reimport as needed. Deselect it if you want to edit the imported files in Flare going forward, severing the connection to the source files.
- Auto-reimport before generate output If you selected “Link generated files to source files,” you will likely make future content changes in the source files. When you make such changes, the source files need to be reimported into the project so that they can be included in the output. You have the option of reimporting the files manually. However, you can use this option instead and let Flare reimport the files automatically when you attempt to build output.
Click Finish, then Accept.

Word Output

Word Import Editor—Import and Re-Import

If you add a Word import file (see Adding a Word Import File) or if you have previously imported Word files using the wizard, a file is added to the Imports folder in the Project Organizer.

When you double-click this file, it opens in the Word Import Editor. This editor contains most of the same fields and options as the Import Word Wizard.

After completing or changing any of these fields, you can click Reimport in the toolbar.

How Word Features are Treated When Imported

The following table shows some Word features how what happens to them when you import documents into Flare.

Word Feature	Result After Import
Artwork and Special Effects	If you apply certain special effects or artwork (e.g., arrows) to images in Word and then import them into Flare, those effects will not be retained. For example, a rotated image will return to its straight, original state. However, there are some workarounds that may allow you to keep the effects or artwork. One solution is to apply another effect such as a shadow or 3-D to the image in Word (e.g., add a shadow to a rotated image that you want to keep). This forces Word to save the image as an entirely new image with the effects. Another possible solution is to save the Word document as a web page, manually copy that HTM file into the Flare folder, and then open it within Flare. As for text floating around images, this effect is not supported in Flare. When you import from Word, the text is added below the image.
File Names	Image file names are treated in the following ways for linked and embedded images: Linked Images If you have inserted a picture as a linked image in a Word document, the file name for the image is preserved when imported into Flare. The image file is stored by default at the root of the Resources > Images subfolder in the Content Explorer. Embedded Images If you have inserted a picture as an embedded image in a Word document, the file name for the image is based on the topic name when imported into Flare. The image file is stored by default in the Resources > Images > [Word Document Name] subfolder in the Content Explorer. Example You have a Word document called "Doggies." Within this document you have an h1 called "Dog Breeds." Under this heading, you have inserted a linked picture of Beagles (file name: beagles.png). You have also embedded a picture of West Highland White Terriers (file name: WestHighlandWhiteTerriers.jpg). After you import the document into Flare, you see that the following has occurred: First, notice that the beagles.png file name has been preserved, and this file is stored in the root of the Images subfolder. Second, notice that the image for the West Highland White Terriers was simply named "Dog Breeds.jpg," after the name of the topic that was created as a result of the h1 text. Also, a subfolder called "Doggies" has been created, based on the name of the Word document. That's where this image file is stored.
Image Alt Text and Description	If you have an image in a Word document that contains alt text or a description, both are brought in to Flare. After the Word document is imported, you can open the topic containing the image, right-click on the image, and select Image Properties. In the Image Properties dialog, the description for the image is shown in the Screen Tip field, and the alt text is shown in the Alternate Text field.
Linked Images	When you insert an image in Word, one of the options is to insert it as a linked image. These types of images are imported into Flare. Note If you received a Word document with linked images from another person—rather than creating the document yourself—you need to also get the images themselves from that individual. Then you need to re-link the images in the document. Otherwise, Word (and therefore also Flare) will not be able to find them.
Videos	If you import a Word document that contains a direct link to a video, it is brought into the Flare project. This only works for direct video links. For example, if you have Word 2013, you can look for and insert videos from Bing or YouTube. These are direct link videos that are supported. But those from video embed codes are not supported.

What’s Noteworthy?

Note Flare supports Microsoft Word 2003 and newer versions.

Note A link icon displays on tabs in the XML Editor next to file names that are imported from and linked to another file or Flare project. However, if you are also using the built-in source control technology, the source control icons have a higher precedence and will therefore be displayed instead.

What’s Next?

Now you can move on to any of the other basic steps:

Note You do not necessarily need to follow all of the above steps (and their substeps) in the exact order given. For example, as you add topics to a project, you may want to start applying styles and formatting to them right away, before adding other features to the project, such as a glossary. However, the above sequence probably makes the most overall logical sense. For example, you must start a project before adding content and features (i.e., topics, content, cross-references, etc.) to it.