Workflow for converting LaTeX into Open Office / MS Word Format

Question

I often have to write up reports based on the analysis of some data. I use R to analyse the data and export tables, figures, and text. This is then included into a LaTeX document either using input or Sweave (see here for details).

However, when I collaborate with others, I sometimes need to provide a document in Open Office / MS Word format.

Question:

Thus, assume the simplest scenario

• I have a latex document with text, tables, and figures
• I need to export this reliably into Open Office or MS Word format: this includes mathematical formulas, table formatting, and quality figures)
• I don't need to go back from MS Word to LaTeX

What is a reliable, efficient, and preferably free process?

Initial Thoughts:

• Export to HTML,
• OOoLatex
• LaTeX - LyX - ODF
• Use odfWeave
• I also just saw this earlier question that deals with some specific issues associated with LaTeX to Open Office conversion
• I've also found this question about LaTeX to Word for resumes

I was hoping that there is an expert out there who has worked out a good system already.

Answer 1

I think that LaTeX is the wrong starting format, especially if you are generating your input file using Sweave. Instead you can consider using a light-weight markup (Markdown, RST, etc) as a starting format. It will be much easier to convert these formats to both LaTeX and OpenOffice (for example, using Pandoc). As an example, see this sweave file which is written in Markdown. I processed it using sweave, did a bit of post-processing, and then used Pandoc to convert it into ConTeXt. Since the file after post-processing is completely in Markdown format, converting it to OpenOffice should not be a problem.

Answer 2

My first instinct would probably be oolatex too, or some other technique using TeX4ht, but another method that can also work well is latex2rtf, though I've had the best luck when I tell it it convert formulas, tables, and other complicated stuff to embedded images in the result: obviously, this isn't a great option if the people you're sending them to need to be able to edit those formulas, etc. (But fine if they only need to read and comment.)

Answer 3

The best way I know to convert a TeX to an XML application is tex4ht. The project page says it converts TeX to a number of different output formats, including "(X)HTML, MathML, OpenDocument, and DocBook." I believe tex4ht can even convert tikz code to SVG graphics. Word supports OpenDocument, so in theory you could just open up the converted document in Word. I'd expect tables to survive the transition, not so much equations and figures. But MS Word's native format is also an XML application, so you might be able to write an XSLT stylesheet to handle the math and figures.

The need for this kind of tool is evident, and the fact that there's no polished way to do it yet somewhat indicates the complexity of the task. Keep that in mind before you take it up!

Answer 4

There's an interesting discussion and comparison of conversion options here: http://www.charlietanksley.net/philtex/converting-from-latex/

Answer 5

Several people have mentioned tex4ht but didn't give the command. From my looking around it seems that the command to run is mk4ht oolatex myfile.tex and you should get a .odt file. I tried it on a basic example and it worked great. When I get a chance I will run it on something more complex.

Answer 6

There is no pain-free way to do this. Really.

Convert your beautiful TeX to pdf, run pdftotext and then import the plain text into a word processor. Recreate all of the tables and equations by hand. Waste days of your life in order to be "compatible" with chumps who don't care about typography until, finally, you decide to stop working with them. Only then will you find inner peace.

Answer 7

If you are not forced to stick to a certain format pick your weapon of choice -- tex4ht (you can just use oolatex) , tth, latex2html etc -- and prepare a document style that converts well with that. I do this all the time for simple reports and such that I need to share with people who like using MS-Word etc to edit them. If you spend a bit of time to taylor it for the conversion, you can get consistently good results.

If you have requirements to stick a certain format, for example for a grant proposal etc, you can get by picking up a style that has more or less the right format but with minimal extras to generate the text then use MS-Word or OpenOffice to fix it up.

Answer 8

I found a very easy solution for converting LaTeX-documents into editable Word-files.

1. Compile your LaTeX-document to PDF
2. Go to the Internet-page http://pdftoword.com/
3. Upload your PDF and wait until the Word-file arrives.

I have only tested the site with text-files (no graphics or formulas), but it converted complex contract in Norwegian (æøå) to pretty exact copies. You loose the structure (no styles, only direct formatting), but it works if you need to send a Word-file for proof reading etc.

Of course, later you have to merge any changes to your LaTeX-source, but still it is better than retyping the document.

For the sake of good order: I have no connections with Nitro Software, I do not even own a copy of their program.

Answer 9

I think these two softwares are missing in the list.

1. TeX2Word from Chikriilab

2. LaTeX-to-Word from Grindeq

Both of them work elegantly for a properly written LaTeX file. Also, they offer packages for word to LaTeX conversion which are again excellent. But unfortunately both of them are not free.

Answer 10

I've been implementing this for my lab. We produce several hundred (if not thousand) documents per year. For us, the solution was a well-defined process that goes approximately like this:

1. Define a class file that contains the correct formatting, etc, using article, report or book classes. Include the minimum number of up-to-date packages in the class and add the nag package to make sure that you (and other users) can see that those packages are not deprecated.
2. Create a template showing how to use the class file
3. Create an SVN (or git, or whatever) repository for the class and template files, and distribute the URL of the repository to LaTeX users
4. Create documents using the lab-standard class file on local or network drives, or using collaborative tools like writeLaTeX
5. Convert the tex files to rtf using LaTeX2rtf (lack of reputation prevents me adding the link...)
6. Get edits and peer reviews done on a cleaned-up rtf file that has been saved as .doc or .docx
7. Taking edits from the 'word' document back in to tex manually and completing the PDF production in LaTeX.
8. Tagging the document using Adobe Acrobat to satisfy ADA section 508 (accessibility)

There were a couple of challenges we had to face to get this adpoted.

1. Getting the editors and reviewers something that fit with their existing process, hence the use of rtf and doc
2. Figuring out how to get the same class file to all users, hence the SVN repository
3. Making sure people know how to use it, hence the template
4. Figuring out tools that let people collaborate. But that's a whole other post!

The one thing that is still causing trouble is 508-compliance. I am looking at the use of the pdfcomment package to add tooltips.

Answer 11

All answers above suggested to use some converter from tex/pdf file to the wanted file format, that is why I try to give an n-th proposal. I think this approach is quite insane in this situation, as native solutions also exist - as the OP also mentioned.

As you generate the reports from R, it might be the less painful to rewrite some function you use in the reporting process and update those to be able to run in odfWeave. Well, it will generate an odt file from an odt one, so not a native Word format, but it is compatible with Ms Office also from the 2007 version (SP2).

That would require to write the body of your text (if any) and the reporting R code in a word processor (Ms Word or e.g. OOWriter), and later run it via odfWeave. The package has a really great documentation, just download the sources and look for the formatting.odt in the examples directory, which shows in 30+ pages most of the great formatting features of the package. This includes: paragraph, font, color, table, cell, image etc. also.