Save any Document from Microsoft Word 2007 to EPUB using a Free Add-in from Aspose

[romeok]

Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word is a free utility that allows converting any document opened in Microsoft Word 2007 to the EPUB format. Microsoft Word 2007 can load documents in many formats including DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, ODT etc and you can now easily convert them all to EPUB using Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word.

More here

http://www.aspose.com/community/blog...om-aspose.aspx

[JSWolf]

Does this support mobile ADE?

[PennyPie]

Thanks! This looks cool!

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does this support mobile ADE?

Doesn' seem so, at least its not mentioned!

[griffonwing]

Question: Does this free plug-in require any activation code or license-key?

The reason I ask is that you have to log-in to download it. And in order to log in, you have to supply personal info such as Name, Street Address, Phone, Country, etc.. This is not something I am willing to supply for a free plug-in for Word.

If it's not a licensed-key required version, I'd like to ask if it could be sent to me via email, or posted somewhere else for download.

[PennyPie]

This is not something I am willing to supply for a free plug-in for Word.

Ditto...

[cmbs]

I don't know anything about this software, and am not suggesting you even try it.

But in general, when someone is demanding this personal information which they don't need I always provide wrong information and it works fine. I usually give my correct email address, because it's usually necessary. And sometimes you have to give a real zip code (but it doesn't have to be the one you live in). Other than that, make stuff up.

My phone number is "(999) 999-9999" and my street address is usually something like "you don't need this information"

I try to make it obvious I'm not telling them, I don't want to send junk mail or phone calls to some random person.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

Doesn' seem so, at least its not mentioned!

Then to me, it's totally useless. Also, a Word 2003 version would be nice too if it did support Mobile ADE.

[Leep]

Originally Posted by romeok

Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word is a free utility that allows converting any document opened in Microsoft Word 2007 to the EPUB format. Microsoft Word 2007 can load documents in many formats including DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, ODT etc and you can now easily convert them all to EPUB using Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word.

More here

http://www.aspose.com/community/blog...om-aspose.aspx

They've apparently temporarily pulled the download link according to their website.

cheers

[JSWolf]

I do hope it's to make sure it's Mobile ADE compatible.

[jgray]

I immensely dislike having to provide any information, just for a free download. I usually skip such things. If it is something that I really want to try (like this now missing download), I also input bogus information. In these cases, I never provide a real email address. If an email address is required to obtain a download link, registration number, etc., I use services like 10minutemail.com. This gives you a valid email address that forwards to your real address, but it expires in ten minutes. You can extend the timeout for additional ten minute intervals.

[Elfwreck]

I shudder to think of ePubs made by automatic output from MS Word, using Word's attempts at HTML.

[griffonwing]

I havent tried, but does Word07 export HTML better than 03?

[brewt]

Got it, tried it.
If you're spooked about providing "personal" information, lie. They connect you to the download link once you create the account; it isn't sent in an email.

It seems to be a fairly straight-forward single-file word-to-epub convertor. It does not enable word to open pre-existant epubs. There's no opportunity/easy way to edit metadata - it seems to use the Word Owner as the author of anything and everything.

Hyperlinks within the file seem to work ok in both calibre and ade (like a word-created toc). Obviously, you can't call on another file with the hyperlinking, being all single-file and all. Funny, there is a calibre_bookmarks.txt file in the generated epub. I'm not seeing any credit for our friend Kovid.

It does strip css - word embeds css-like code at the beginning of each file that Calibre does parse into real-ish css in the epub.

It converts this from the original word-htm:

h1
{mso-style-link:"Heading 1 Char";
margin-top:12.0pt;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:3.0pt;
margin-left:0in;
text-align:justify;
line-height:36.0pt;
page-break-before:always;
page-break-after:avoid;
font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Frutiger Linotype","sans-serif";
font-variant:small-caps;
font-weight:bold;}

to an on-the-fly call like this:

<span style="font-family:sans-serif; font-size:18pt; font-variant:small-caps; font-weight:bold">Your Text Here</span>

each time it's used.

Some things work differently on the resultant epub between ade and calibre-reader, but they do anyway. The epub does load into calibre ok, and a mobi file can be created, with all the abbreviated style bits.

And yes, Word is perfectly viable as a base-file editor for epubs/mobi. I do it all the time. No matter how you feel about Microsoft, they did do some things right with Word - tocs, spell/grammar check, thesarus, macros, search and replace by style, easily-changed styles and style sets, comments, footnotes, citations, corrections/somewhat of a revision control, blah blah blah.

There are 2 big things in Word2007 that do make it a significant improvement over 2003:
1) Style Set Management. You can create an arbitrary style set and change any document into it with little duress.
2) Interface customization. You can put an icon onto the Quick Access Toolbar for any command or feature in word including macros. Makes things oh-so-much-faster.
Sure, they moved everything around which takes some time to get used to. And they did get a little carried away with the css-embedment at the beginning of each file (I've seen it have a reference for all possible styles with a reference to every font on my machine - and I've got a boat load of those). But the help (for the most part) works.

So there.

-bjc

[romeok]

Hi all,

Thanks for trying the plugin and for the feedback. I will try to answer all questions I've seen so far:

1. Personal info and registration. I don't understand what the fuss is about. It is an acceptable practice to require registration, especially for something free. If you don't like providing useful info, don't. You will still get the download. Our company's focus is components for .NET and Java developers and a simple registration is required to access downloads and reply in the forums. We have created this free plug-in based on one of our products and made it available for public use. We do not particularly need information about plugin users, I'd say it will just be an extra cost for us to change the existing website.

2. ADE means Adobe Digital Editions I presume. Yes, EPUB created by Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word reads in ADE well. It is the first on the list of products that we test with.

3. Word 2007 to HTML or Word 2003 to HTML. The answer is neither. Aspose.Words is itself a file conversion engine. In this particular case the flow is MS Word saves DOCX (OOXML), Aspose.Words reads it and converts to EPUB itself. So it is not MS Word to HTML conversion. Our main commercial product is the component for software developers Aspose.Words for .NET and Aspose.Words for Java that offers much more. Conversion to EPUB is just one small feature that we thought would be cool to make into a free add-in for MS Word.

4. Edit Metadata. Aspose.Words converts document properties into EPUB metadata. So if you go into document properties in MS Word and specify title, keywords, author etc, you will get that in the EPUB output.

5. calibre_bookmarks.txt embedded in EPUB. Sorry no idea what you are talking about. Aspose.Words is completely our own code in all its features and does not use any third party libraries. So we do not give credit to anyone.

6. CSS in HTML. This MS Word to EPUB export in Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word is based on the capability of Aspose.Words for .NET to convert various documents to HTML/MHTML and EPUB. There is a number of options are supported in the actual component (that is for software developers) including different ways of saving CSS. There is an option to save inline CSS like you've seen above (default). There is an option to save using a CSS stylesheet that is embedded in the file and also into external CSS stylesheet (although in EPUB I think it will always be internal). You do not get these options in Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word because it is just V1.0 and we are interested in seeing any feedback. If you feel that EPUB generated by Aspose.Words can be improved, feel free to suggest what do you want to see.

I just want to reiterate that Aspose is a company that develops components for .NET and Java developers. This Aspose.Words for Microsoft Word is a free product based on one of our components Aspose.Words for .NET. We are interested in improving EPUB conversion (as well as all other features) and felt that making it available for public to use in different scenarios will help us get constructive feedback.

BTW Aspose.Words for .NET is also the engine that is used by Adobe Buzzword to convert documents to EPUB.