topic-8403

Posts: 56

Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 02:34 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:23 PM

How to convert a MS Word file to a .TXT (straight text) file, using my own code?

If I was doing it manually, it would be the equivalent of

(a) starting MS Word, opening a doc file, then "SAVE AS .." .TXT then closing MS Word

(b) then running my app against the resulting text file.

I am desperate for suggestions on how to automate step (a) in such a way that the user never sees a MS Word screen.

I need my app to do everything. i.e. The user simply selects a DOC file (via cGetFile("*.DOC", "Select a file to assess", ,) then my app needs to convert it to straight text and analyse the words in the text file.

The resulting text file is not later converted back to a MS Word DOC file or anything involving MS Word.

I don't want to shell out to a 3rd party Word->Txt converter if I can avoid it. The app is to be a low-priced mass market product in their own networked environment and I shall never have any technical contact with any user. All users are expected to have MS Word but, beyond that, I want to keep my app as self-contained as possible. (i.e. without having to register an OCX or change registry entries or anything like that). The users have only the most basic PC skills.

I've no experience with using OLE or interacting with a MS product so I'd be very grateful for any coding suggestions.

Many thanks in advance.
Colin Wisbey

Antonio Linares

Posts: 44158

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 05:47 PM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:34 PM

Colin,

Just a quick idea:
Have you tried to locate the text into the DOC file using brute force ?

At( cToFind, MemoRead( "file.doc" ) )

If you place some text for the beginning and for the end, then you may extract what there is in between, using SubStr()

regards, saludos

Antonio Linares
www.fivetechsoft.com

Adolfo

Posts: 883

Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:57 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:13 AM

Which compiler are you using Harbour, xHarbour.org, xHb.com ?

Depending on it you may use tActivex to open the doc, and saving it as a TXT file.

Just an idea.

From Chile
Adolfo

;-) Ji,ji,ji... buena la cosa... "all you need is code"

http://www.xdata.cl - Desarrollo Inteligente
----------
Asus TUF F15, 32GB Ram, 2 * 1 TB NVME M.2, GTX 1650

Adolfo

Posts: 883

Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:57 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:17 AM

Sorry... I meant tOle...

If you are using xhb.com, I have some easy samples, you may modify them to fullfil your needs.

I`ve tried to open MSWord documents with fopen, and read its content, It worked with some documents, but if It contains any kind of letter, borders, diferrent colors, it was a mess, since it has some control characters that made the reading of the file almost impossible.

From Chile
Adolfo

;-) Ji,ji,ji... buena la cosa... "all you need is code"

http://www.xdata.cl - Desarrollo Inteligente
----------
Asus TUF F15, 32GB Ram, 2 * 1 TB NVME M.2, GTX 1650

Colin Wisbey

Posts: 56

Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 02:34 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 01:06 AM

Antonio,
Thanks for responding so promptly.

Unfortunately your suggestion doesn't apply to my app. My app never knows what text is in the doc. It could be anything and the doc could could contain just a few words or over 1 million words.

The purpose of my app is to take all of the raw text (i.e. stripped of any graphics, word-processing formatting etc) and then analyse what words are in the file and how they are used. It is somewhat of an "English literacy test" analyser.

Colin Wisbey

Posts: 56

Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 02:34 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 01:13 AM

Adolfo,

That sounds like the sort of approach I guess I need to take.

I am using FW7.01 and xHb.com (but compiled with Borland).

The MS Word doc files could contain anything, including graphics. I need the ability to extract all the text and only the text.

Could you be so kind as to either post some code or email it to me at

cwisbey@optusnet.com.au

Many thanks for your offer of assistance.

Enrico Maria Giordano

Posts: 9020

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 08:17 PM

Re: MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 07:11 AM

Colin Wisbey wrote:How to convert a MS Word file to a .TXT (straight text) file, using my own code?

Code: Select all Collapse

#define wdFormatDOSText 4


FUNCTION MAIN()

    LOCAL oWord := CREATEOBJECT( "Word.Application" )

    LOCAL oDoc := oWord:Documents:Open( "e:\xharbour\test.doc" )

    oDoc:SaveAs( "e:\xharbour\NewDocument.txt", wdFormatDOSText )

    oWord:Quit()

    RETURN NIL

EMG

Enrico Maria Giordano

e.m.giordano@emagsoftware.it
http://www.emagsoftware.it
http://www.emagsoftware.it/emgmusic
http://www.emagsoftware.it/spectrum
http://www.emagsoftware.it/tbosg

Colin Wisbey

Posts: 56

Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 02:34 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 08:43 AM

Enrico,

That works perfectly. I couldn't be happier. Biggest thanks!!!!!

Col

Antonio Linares

Posts: 44158

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 05:47 PM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 09:02 AM

Great :-)

Thanks Master Enrico

regards, saludos

Antonio Linares
www.fivetechsoft.com

ask

Posts: 99

Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:40 AM

Re: MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:28 AM

EnricoMaria wrote:
Colin Wisbey wrote:How to convert a MS Word file to a .TXT (straight text) file, using my own code?
Code: Select all Collapse
#define wdFormatDOSText 4


FUNCTION MAIN()

    LOCAL oWord := CREATEOBJECT( "Word.Application" )

    LOCAL oDoc := oWord:Documents:Open( "e:\xharbour\test.doc" )

    oDoc:SaveAs( "e:\xharbour\NewDocument.txt", wdFormatDOSText )

    oWord:Quit()

    RETURN NIL
EMG

I think you should use oWord:Documents:Add( " ... instead of oWord:Documents:Open because this may cause "read only problems" .The Add property opens it like a template so you will never have any problems

regards,

A.S.K

Marc Vanzegbroeck

Posts: 1195

Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 05:41 AM

MS Word to .HTM filtered
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 06:55 PM

Enrico,

Do you know the how to save the word-file as Web-page-filtered?

Thanks,
Marc

Marc Vanzegbroeck

Posts: 1195

Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 05:41 AM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 07:40 PM

Hi,

Please ignore this message, I found it

Marc

Antonio Linares

Posts: 44158

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 05:47 PM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 06:53 AM

Marc,

Would you mind to share the solution with us ? thanks! :-)

regards, saludos

Antonio Linares
www.fivetechsoft.com

gkuhnert

Posts: 274

Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 01:25 PM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 08:28 AM

These Save-Options are available in Word:

Code: Select all Collapse

wdFormatDocument	0	Microsoft Office Word format.
wdFormatDOSText	4	Microsoft DOS text format.
wdFormatDOSTextLineBreaks	5	Microsoft DOS text with line breaks preserved.
wdFormatEncodedText	7	Encoded text format.
wdFormatFilteredHTML	10	Filtered HTML format.
wdFormatHTML	8	Standard HTML format.
wdFormatRTF	6	Rich text format (RTF).
wdFormatTemplate	1	Word template format.
wdFormatText	2	Microsoft Windows text format.
wdFormatTextLineBreaks	3	Windows text format with line breaks preserved.
wdFormatUnicodeText	7	Unicode text format.
wdFormatWebArchive	9	Web archive format.
wdFormatXML	11	Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.
wdFormatDocument97	0	Microsoft Word 97 document format.
wdFormatDocumentDefault	16	Word default document file format. For Microsoft Office Word 2007, this is the DOCX format.
wdFormatPDF	17	PDF format.
wdFormatTemplate97	1	Word 97 template format.
wdFormatXMLDocument	12	XML document format.
wdFormatXMLDocumentMacroEnabled	13	XML document format with macros enabled.
wdFormatXMLTemplate	14	XML template format.
wdFormatXMLTemplateMacroEnabled	15	XML template format with macros enabled.
wdFormatXPS	18	XPS format.

and can be used in the same way Enrico wrote:

Code: Select all Collapse

oDoc:SaveAs( "e:\xharbour\NewDocument.txt", wdFormatDOSText )

You can find the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb238158.aspx

Best Regards,

Gilbert Kuhnert
CTO Software GmbH
http://www.ctosoftware.de

Antonio Linares

Posts: 44158

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 05:47 PM

MS Word to .TXT
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 09:22 AM

Gilbert,

Thanks! :-)

regards, saludos

Antonio Linares
www.fivetechsoft.com

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