15.10.1 Supporting more than one version of Word

If you are trying to support multiple users who have a variety of Word versions, you cannot just give them RTF files; Microsoft made sure of that. Instead, you must provide documents in .doc or .docx format.

To produce Word files in .doc or .docx format from RTF files generated by DITA2Go:

  1. Load each generated RTF file into the version of Word for which DITA2Go produced it; see §15.2 Adjusting output for different versions of Word).
  2. Wait until Word has counted up pages to the end, and stops; watch the counter in the status bar.
  3. Select all (Ctrl+A).
  4. Update fields (F9).
  5. Save the file from Word as .doc (or .docx for Word 2007 and later versions).

Automate the process

Or, you can create a Word VBA macro that will do all that for you; for example, a Word macro like the following macro for .doc output:

Sub LoadRtfFile()
'
' LoadRtf2007 Macro
' Macro recorded 5/31/2010 by Omni Systems
'
Dim nameStr As String
Selection.WholeStory
Selection.Fields.Update
nameStr = Replace(ActiveDocument.FullName, ".rtf", ".doc")
ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument, _
FileName:=nameStr, LockComments:=False
Selection.StartOf
End Sub

See the Word VBA reference for details. Word files in .doc or .docx format can be distributed to users who have any version of Word.

Also see §15.1.5 Producing PDF automatically via Word.

Previous Topic:  15.10 Managing Word output after conversion

Next Topic:  15.10.2 Including index terms in Word

Parent Topic:  15.10 Managing Word output after conversion

Sibling Topics:

15.10.2 Including index terms in Word

15.10.3 Producing ASCII text from a converted Word document

15.10.4 Checking print RTF output files for DITA2Go version

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