Showing MSWord document on web site

Factual Questions
1

A charity I am associated with has given me a document in MSWord format. It is a form of newsletter which is posted out to members. They would also like it to be viewable on their web site.

What is the easiest way of getting the MSWord document to appear on the web site in as close to the original formatting as possible? The document is laid out using frames containing columns of text. There are no graphics (in this issue anyway), but there are a couple of tables.

They don’t really want it on the site as a downloadable pdf or Word document, fearing this will put off less technically-minded readers. I’d rather not have to try to copy the format in html, although I can do this if needs be, it just seems a doubling of effort. Rendering the document as a series of raster images doesn’t sound too feasible either.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks, in advance…

2

Word 2000 has a “save as web page” option. It’s not perfect, but it does try to keep the formatting.

3

Word 97 also has that option.

4

You have two options:

  1. As RealityChuck mentioned, you can do a “Save as Web Page” in Word 2000 or higher. I would however recommend doing a “Save as Web Page (filtered)” as this will remove any Office-specific HTML formatting (and also make the file smaller and thus faster to load).

  2. You can simply put it on the website as is. This would require the end-user to have Word installed, but any version will do. To do this, just put the *.doc file in a folder on your website and put a link to it thusly.

5

Thanks for the replies…

RealityChuck : I have only got Word '97 here at work (I know, cheapskates), but I have Word 2000 at home… I shall try the save as web page option, many thanks.

Sailor : Err, unless I am stupid ( :wink: ), I can’t find a save as web page in Word '97? I have a ‘Save as html’, which I tried before posting, and which produces precisely… nothing, a blank page. I assume it can’t handle the frames?

In preview I see Rex’s post too, thanks for the advice Rex. I think I need to avoid relying only on your option 2 (or at least my ‘masters’ do), as they are worried not everyone has Word or a Word viewer.

Thanks again.

6

Ewwwww… Don’t use the Word97 “Save as HTML” option. It’s not worth a damn. Word 2000, XP or 2003 do a much better job.