XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Explains how to install and use XMLmind Word To XML (w2x for short) , how to customize
the output of w2x and how to embed a w2x processor in a Java™ application.

Hussein Shafie
XMLmind Software
35 rue Louis Leblanc,
78120 Rambouillet,
France,
Phone: +33 (0)9 52 80 80 37,
Web: http://www.xmlmind.com/w2x/
Email: mailto:[email protected] (public mailing list)
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Contents
1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4
2 Installing w2x ....................................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Contents of the installation directory ........................................................................................... 6
3 Alternatives to using the w2x command-line utility ............................................................................. 9
3.1 The w2x-app graphical application ............................................................................................... 9
3.2 The “Word To XML” add-on for XMLmind XML Editor ................................................................ 9
3.2.1 Installing the “Word To XML” add-on ................................................................................ 10
3.3 The “Word To XML” servlet ........................................................................................................ 10
3.3.1 Contents of the servlet software distribution..................................................................... 10
3.3.2 Installing the servlet ............................................................................................................ 11
3.3.3 Configuring the servlet ........................................................................................................ 11
3.3.4 Using the servlet to convert DOCX files .............................................................................. 12
3.3.5 Non interactive requests..................................................................................................... 13
4 Getting started with w2x .................................................................................................................... 15
4.1 How to generate useful multi-page HTML.................................................................................. 17
5 Going further with w2x ....................................................................................................................... 19
5.1 Stock XED scripts ......................................................................................................................... 21
6 Customizing the output of w2x ........................................................................................................... 24
6.1 Customizing the XHTML+CSS files generated by w2x ................................................................. 24
6.1.1 Using a XED script to modify the styles embedded in the XHTML+CSS file ........................ 24
6.1.2 Appending custom styles to the styles embedded in the XHTML+CSS file......................... 24
6.1.3 Using an external CSS file rather than embedded CSS styles ............................................. 25
6.1.4 Combining all the above methods ...................................................................................... 26
6.2 Customizing the semantic XML files generated by w2x ............................................................. 27
6.2.1 Converting custom character styles to semantic tags ........................................................ 27
6.2.2 Converting custom paragraph styles to semantic tags ....................................................... 28
6.2.3 The general case ................................................................................................................. 30
6.3 Generating XML conforming to a custom schema ..................................................................... 33
7 The w2x command-line utility ............................................................................................................ 34
7.1 Variables substituted in the parameter values passed to the –p and –pu options .................. 36

2
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

7.2 Default conversion steps............................................................................................................. 37

7.3 Automatic conversion step parameters ..................................................................................... 37
8 Conversion step reference .................................................................................................................. 38
8.1 Convert step ................................................................................................................................ 38
8.2 Delete files step .......................................................................................................................... 41
8.3 Edit step ...................................................................................................................................... 41
8.4 EPUB step .................................................................................................................................... 51
8.5 Load step ..................................................................................................................................... 51
8.6 Save step ..................................................................................................................................... 52
8.7 Split step...................................................................................................................................... 52
8.8 Transform step ............................................................................................................................ 54
8.9 Web Help step............................................................................................................................. 58
9 Embedding w2x in a Java™ application............................................................................................... 60
9.1 Extension points .......................................................................................................................... 61
9.1.1 Custom conversion step...................................................................................................... 61
9.1.2 Custom image converters ................................................................................................... 61
9.1.2.1 Specifying an external image converter.......................................................................... 62
9.1.2.2 Controlling how image files found in the input DOCX file are converted to standard
formats 63
10 Limitations and implementation specificities ................................................................................. 65
10.1 About tab stops ........................................................................................................................... 67
Index............................................................................................................................................................ 68

3
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

1 Introduction
Microsoft® Word is an amazing popular writing tool. However, its main drawback is that, once your
document is complete, you cannot do much with it: print it, convert it to PDF or send it as is by email.

XMLmind Word To XML aims no less than to suppress Microsoft® Word main drawback. This 100%
Java™ software component allows to automate the publishing —in its widest sense— of contents
created using Microsoft® Word 2007+.

More precisely, XMLmind Word To XML (w2x for short) allows to automatically convert DOCX files to:

 Clean, styled, valid XHTML+CSS, looking very much like the source DOCX files.

Because the generated XHTML+CSS file is clean and valid, you can easily restyle it, extract
metadata or an abstract from it before publishing it.

 Unstyled, valid, semantic XML (DITA, DocBook, XHTML, your custom schema, etc).

In this case, most styles are converted to semantic tags. For example, numbered paragraphs are
converted to proper ordered lists.

Generating semantic XML out of DOCX files is useful for interchange reasons (e.g. implement
open data) or because you want to port your existing documentation to a structured document
format where form and content are completely separated (e.g. implement single source
publishing).

Of course, deploying w2x does not require installing MS-Word on the machines hosting the software.
Also note that w2x does not require the authors to change their habits while using MS-Word: no strict
writing discipline, no specific styles, no specific document templates, no specific macros, etc.

This document explains:

 how to install and use w2x;

 how to customize the output of w2x;
 because w2x has been designed to be easily embedded in any Java, desktop or server-side,
application, how to embed a w2x processor in a Java application.

4
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

2 Installing w2x
Requirements
XMLmind Word To XML (w2x for short) requires the Oracle Java™ runtime 1.6+. However, w2x is
officially supported by XMLmind only on Windows XP to 10, macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), 10.12 (Sierra)
and and Linux.

On Linux, make sure that the Java bin/ directory is referenced in the $PATH and, at the same time, check
that the Java runtime in the $PATH has the right version:

$ java -version
java version "10" 2018-03-20
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.3 (build 10+46)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.3 (build 10+46, mixed mode)

On Windows and on the Mac, this verification is in principle not needed as the java executable is
automatically found in the $PATH when Java has been properly installed.

Install on Windows
1. Download the setup.exe distribution.
This setup.exe files includes a very recent, generally the most recent, Oracle® private Java™
runtime. Therefore, you don't need to install Java on your computer. Moreover, if you have Java
already installed on your computer, then your public Java runtime will be ignored by w2x.
2. Double-click on the setup.exe file to launch the installer.
3. Follow the instructions of the installer.

Install on the Mac

1. Download the .dmg distribution.
2. Double-click the downloaded .dmg file to open it in the Finder.
3. Copy the WordToXML.app folder, an application bundle represented by icon , anywhere you
want. For example, drag&drop this icon to the /Applications folder or to your desktop.
4. Start the w2x-app desktop application by double-clicking on the icon (or use the Launchpad).
5. The first time w2x-app is started, your Mac will generally ask you to confirm that you actually
want to open an application downloaded from the Internet. Click Open to confirm.
Don't worry, w2x-app has been digitally signed using a certificate issued by Apple itself. This
confirmation is required for any digitally signed application not coming from the App Store.
6. Move the downloaded .dmg file to the Trash.

About Java on the Mac

The .dmg distribution includes a very recent, generally the most recent, Oracle® private Java™
runtime. However, this private runtime is not necessarily the one which will be used to run
w2x-app:

5
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

- If you have an Oracle Java runtime at least as recent as the bundled one installed on your
computer, this runtime will be used to run w2x-app.

- Otherwise, it's the bundled runtime which will be used to run w2x-app.

Manual install on any Java 1.6+ platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc)
Unzip the .zip distribution in any directory you want.

C:\> unzip w2x-1_5_0.zip

C:\> cd w2x-1_5_0

C:\w2x-1_5_0> dir
... <DIR> bin
... <DIR> doc
... <DIR> legal
...

XMLmind Word To XML is intended to be used directly from the w2x-1_5_0/ directory. That is, you can
run the w2x command by simply executing (in a Command Prompt on windows, a terminal on Linux):

C:\w2x-1_5_0> bin\w2x
Usage: w2x [-version] [-v|-vv] [Options] [-liststeps] in_docx_file out_file

-version
Print version number and exit.
-v|-vv
Verbose.
-liststeps
List the conversion steps to be executed and exit.

Use '-?' to list options.

2.1 Contents of the installation directory

If the .dmg distribution has been used to install XMLmind Word To XML on the Mac, the
following subdirectories are found in WordToXML.app/Contents/Resources/w2x/.

bin/w2x, w2x.bat
Scripts used to run XMLmind Word To XML (w2x for short). Use w2x on any Unix system. Use
w2x.bat on Windows.

bin/w2x-app.exe, w2x-app.jstart
File w2x-app.exe is used to start w2x-app, a graphical application easier to use than the w2x
command-line utility, on Windows. This .exe file is a home-made launcher parameterized by
xxe.jstart, an UTF-8 encoded, plain text file.

6
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

bin/w2x-app, w2x-app-c.bat
Scripts used to run w2x-app, a graphical application easier to use than the w2x command-line utility.
Use w2x-app on any Unix system. Use w2x-app-c.bat on Windows , but only when you need to
start w2x-app with a console. On Windows, a console is needed to be able to see low-level error
messages.

doc/index.html
Contains the documentation of w2x.

doc/manual/
Contains XMLMIND WORD TO XML MANUAL. This document is available in source DOCX format, in
PDF format and in all the output formats supported by w2x.

doc/manual/conv_manual.sh, conv_manual.bat
Scripts allowing to convert XMLMIND WORD TO XML MANUAL to all the output formats supported by
w2x. The files generated by these scripts are found in doc/manual/out/.

doc/xedscript/
Contains THE XED SCRIPTING LANGUAGE .

doc/w2x_app_help/
Contains the online help of w2x-app, a graphical application which is easier to use than the w2x
command-line utility.

doc/api/
Contains the reference manual of the Java™ API of w2x (generated using javadoc).

legal/, legal.txt
Contains legal information about w2x and about third-party components used in w2x.

lib/
All the (non-system) Java™ class libraries needed to run w2x:

resolver.jar: XML Entity and URI Resolvers.

saxon.jar: The Saxon 6.5.5 XSLT 1.0 engine.

w2x_all.jar: self-contained JAR containing everything needed to run w2x, that is, all the other JAR
files and also all the scripts and the stylesheets found in subdirectories xed/ and xslt/.

w2x.jar: contains the w2x engine.

w2x_rt.jar: contains a runtime needed by the w2x engine. All these classes come from XMLmind
XML Editor.

wmf2svg.jar: WMF to SVG Converting Tool & Library; needed to support the WMF picture format.

7
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

wmf_converter.jar: contains a picture format plug-in based on wmf2svg.jar.

whc.jar: contains the XMLmind Web Help Compiler engine.

snowball.jar: Snowball is used by XMLmind Web Help Compiler to implement stemming.

xed/
Contains the XED scripts used to convert styles to semantic XHTML tags.

xslt/
Contains the XSLT 1.0 stylesheets used to generate semantic XML.

8
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

3 Alternatives to using the w2x command-line utility

3.1 The w2x-app graphical application

Graphical application w2x-app should be easier to use than the w2x command-line utility. This
application is found in w2x_install_dir/bin/. How to use it is explained in w2x-app - Online Help.

Figure 1 w2x-app window

3.2 The “Word To XML” add-on for XMLmind XML Editor

Graphical application w2x-app is also available as an add-on for XMLmind XML Editor. This add-on adds
an "Import DOCX" item to the File menu. The "Import DOCX" menu item displays a non-modal dialog
box almost identical to w2x-app. XML output files created using the "Import DOCX" dialog box are
automatically opened in XMLmind XML Editor.

9
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

3.2.1 Installing the “Word To XML” add-on

This add-on is compatible with latest version of XMLmind XML Editor. In order to install it, please
proceed as follows:

1. Start XMLmind XML Editor.

2. Select OptionsInstall Add-ons. This displays the “Install Add-ons” dialog box.
3. In the Install tab, click the checkbox found before the table row containing “Word To XML”.

4. Click OK to download and install the “Word To XML” add-on.

5. Restart XMLmind XML Editor as instructed.
Notice that the File menu has now an “Import DOCX” item.

3.3 The “Word To XML” servlet

The “Word To XML” servlet is a Java™ Servlet (server-side standard component) which has the same functions
as the w2x-app desktop application.

Because it’s a server-side component and not a desktop application, please do not attempt to
deploy the “Word To XML” servlet if you are an end-user of “Word To XML”. Please ask your
IT personnel to do that for you.

3.3.1 Contents of the servlet software distribution

The “Word To XML” servlet comes in a software distribution of its own: w2x_servet-1_5_0.zip. This
distribution contains a ready-to-deploy binary w2x.war, as well as the full Java™ source code of the
servlet.

10
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

w2x.war
Ready-to-deploy Web application ARchive (WAR) containing the servlet.

src/
src/build.xml
The Java™ source code of the servlet. Run ant in src/ in order to use src/build.xml to rebuild
w2x.war.

w2x/
Directory containing unpacked w2x.war. Needed to rebuild w2x.war.

lib/
Contains Java™ libraries needed to rebuild w2x.war.

3.3.2 Installing the servlet

File w2x.war may be easily installed in any servlet container implementing at least the Servlet 2.3
standard. Example of such servlet containers: Apache Tomcat, Jetty, Caucho Resin.

Though copying file w2x.war to the webapps/ folder of the servlet container and then restarting the
servlet container is generally sufficient to deploy the “Word To XML” servlet, please refer to the
documentation your servlet container to learn about the best deployment procedure.

On Windows, the .dll files contained in w2x_servlet_deployment_dir\WEB-INF\lib\ must

be copied to a directory referenced by the PATH environment variable of the computer
running the servlet.

3.3.3 Configuring the servlet

The “Word To XML” servlet is configured by specifying a number of init-param parameters. These
parameters are found in WEB-INF/web.xml, where folder WEB-INF/ is contained in w2x.war.

All these init-param parameters are documented in web.xml. Example, parameter workDir:

<!-- workDir =============================================================

Uploaded files and files generated during the conversion process
are stored in temporary subdirectories of this directory.
If specified directory does not exist, it will be created.

Value: this directory and its contents must be readable and writable
by the operating system account used to run the Word To XML servlet.

Default: dynamic; supplied by the Servlet Container.

====================================================================== -->

<init-param>
<param-name>workDir</param-name><param-value></param-value>
</init-param>

11
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

3.3.4 Using the servlet to convert DOCX files

Let’s suppose your servlet container runs on host localhost and uses 8080 as its port. In order to use
the “Word To XML” servlet, please point your Web browser to http://localhost:8080/w2x/. This will
cause the browser to display a page containing a simple DOCX convert form.

Figure 2 The Convert DOCX form (servlet container running on host 192.168.1.202 and using port 8080)

In order to convert a DOCX file to another format:

1. Click “Choose File” to select the DOCX file to be converted.

2. Select the desired output format using the “Output format” combobox.
3. Click Convert to download a .zip (or .epub) archive containing the result of the conversion.
Generating this .zip (or .epub) file may take several seconds to several minutes depending on
the size of the DOCX input file.

If the name of the DOCX input file contains non-ASCII characters (e.g. accented characters),
please make sure to use Zip extractor software supporting .zip files having UTF-8 encoded
filenames.

12
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Note that most Zip extractor software do not support .zip files having UTF-8 encoded
filenames1. Such extractors will succeed in unpacking the .zip file, but will generate files
having incorrect names.

3.3.5 Non interactive requests

It’s also possible to use the conversion services of the “Word To XML” servlet by sending URL
/w2x/convert an HTTP POST request having a multipart/form-data encoding.

cURL2 example:

curl -s -S -o manual_docbook5.zip \
-F "[email protected];type=application/vnd.openxmlformats-
officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" \
-F "conv=docbook5" \
http://localhost:8080/w2x/convert

Other example:

curl -s -S -o manual.epub \
-F "[email protected];type=application/vnd.openxmlformats-
officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" \
-F "conv=epub" \
-F "params=-p epub.identifier urn:x-mlmind:w2x:manual -p epub.split-before-level 8" \
http://localhost:8080/w2x/convert

The conversion request has three emulated form fields:

docx
Emulated <input type=”file”> field. Required. Contains the DOCX input file.

conv
Emulated <input type=”text”> field. Required. Contains the name of one of the
conversionN.name init-param defined in WEB-INF/web.xml.

The stock WEB-INF/web.xml defines the following conversions to styled HTML:

xhtml_css (single page styled HTML), frameset (multi-page styled HTML, split on Heading 1), frameset2 (multi-
page styled HTML, split on Heading 1, 2), frameset3 (multi-page styled HTML, split on Heading 1, 2, 3), webhelp (split
on Heading 1), webhelp2 (split on Heading 1, 2), webhelp3 (split on Heading 1, 2, 3), epub (split on Heading 1),
epub2 (split on Heading 1, 2), epub3 (split on Heading 1, 2, 3)

and also the following conversions to “semantic” XML:

1
However, “jar xvf converted.zip” works fine. jar is a command-line utility which comes with all Java
Development Kits (JDK).
2
curl is an open source command line tool and library for transferring data with URL syntax.

13
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

docbook, docbook5, topic, map, bookmap, xhtml_strict, xhtml_loose, xhtml1_1, xhtml5.

params
Emulated <input type=”text”> field. Optional. Contains some w2x command-line options,
generally -p parameters. These options are appended to the options of the conversion specified in
the conv emulated form field.

The response to a successful conversion request is a .zip (or .epub) archive containing the result of the
conversion.

14
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

4 Getting started with w2x

About Evaluation Edition

Note that Evaluation Edition is useless for any purpose other than evaluating XMLmind Word
To XML. This edition generates output containing random words replaced by string
"[XMLmind]". (Of course, this does not happen with Professional Edition!)

We’ll use this manual to explain the basic uses of the w2x command-line utility. This manual is found in
DOCX format in w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/ and the w2x command-line utility is found in
w2x_install_dir/bin/.

C:\w2x-1_5_0> cd doc\manual
C:\w2x-1_5_0\doc\manual> mkdir out

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.xhtml, containing clean, styled, valid XHTML+CSS, looking

very much like manual.docx:

..\..\bin\w2x manual.docx out\manual.xhtml

If you want to generate XHTML which is treated by Web browsers as if it were HTML, simply use
a .html file extension for the output file:

..\..\bin\w2x manual.docx out\manual.html

Doing this automatically turn on options3 which remove the XML declaration (<?xml
version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?>) normally found at the top of an XHTML file and insert a
<meta content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8” http-equiv=”Content-Type”/> into the
html/head element of the output document.

3
This option is “-p convert.charset UTF-8”. See charset parameter.

15
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

 Convert manual.docx to out\frameset\manual.xhtml, containing multi-page, clean, styled,

valid XHTML+CSS, looking very much like manual.docx:

..\..\bin\w2x –o frameset manual.docx out\frameset\manual.xhtml

The above command generates multiple “.xhtml” files in the out\frameset directory which is
automatically created4 if needed to.
Note that out\frameset\manual.xhtml contains a frameset. While an obsolete HTML feature,
a frameset makes it easy browsing the generated XHTML+CSS pages. Moreover the table of
contents used as the left frame, found in out\frameset\manual-TOC.xhtml, is a convenient
way to programmatically list all the generated XHTML+CSS pages.
 Convert manual.docx to out\webhelp\manual.html, containing a Web Help looking very much
like manual.docx:

..\..\bin\w2x –o webhelp manual.docx out\webhelp\manual.html

The above command generates multiple “.html” files in the out\webhelp directory which is
automatically created if needed to.

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.epub, containing a EPUB 2 book looking very much like
manual.docx:

..\..\bin\w2x –o epub manual.docx out\manual.epub

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.xml, containing DocBook 4.5.

..\..\bin\w2x –o docbook manual.docx out\manual.xml

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.xml, containing DocBook 5.0.

..\..\bin\w2x –o docbook5 manual.docx out\manual.xml

By default, the generated DocBook files contain HTML tables. If you prefer DocBook to contain
CALS tables, please use the following options:

..\..\bin\w2x –o docbook5
-p convert.set-column-number yes -p transform.cals-tables yes
manual.docx out\manual.xml

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.dita, containing a DITA topic.

..\..\bin\w2x –o topic manual.docx out\manual.dita

4
But not automatically made empty if the output directory already exists.

16
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Generating a task having “MyTask” as its ID is equally simple:

..\..\bin\w2x –o topic
-p transform.topic-type task -p transform.root-topic-id MyTask
manual.docx out\manual.dita

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.ditamap, containing a DITA map.

..\..\bin\w2x –o map manual.docx out\manual.ditamap

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.ditamap, containing a DITA bookmap possibly having

chapter topicrefs and nested topicrefs acting as sections and subsections (but no sub-
subsections).

..\..\bin\w2x –o bookmap -p transform2.section-depth 3

manual.docx out\manual.ditamap

 Convert manual.docx to out\manual.xhtml, containing “semantic”, unstyled XHTML5.

..\..\bin\w2x –o xhtml5 manual.docx out\manual.xhtml

Use the following options to generate other versions of semantic XHTML:

Option XHTML Version

-o xhtml_strict XHTML 1.0 Strict
-o xhtml_loose XHTML 1.0 Transitional
-o xhtml_1 XHTML 1.1
-o xhtml5 XHTML 5.0

4.1 How to generate useful multi-page HTML

In order to generate multi-page HTML, that is, frameset, Web Help, EPUB, we need to automatically split
the source DOCX document into parts.

A new part is created each time a paragraph having an outline level less than or equal to specified
split-before-level parameter is found in the source. An outline level is an integer between 0 (e.g.
style “Heading 1”) and 8 (e.g. style “Heading 9”). The default value of parameter split-before-level
is 0, which means: for each “Heading 1”, create a new page starting with this “Heading 1”.

Frameset example: for each “Heading 1” and “Heading 2”, create a new page (out/frameset/manual-
1.xhtml, out/frameset/manual-2.xhtml, ..., out/frameset/manual-N.xhtml) starting with this
“Heading 1” or “Heading 2”:

..\..\bin\w2x -p split.split-before-level 1
–o frameset manual.docx out\frameset\manual.xhtml

EPUB example:

17
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

..\..\bin\w2x -p epub.split-before-level 1
–o epub manual.docx out\manual.epub

Web Help containing “semantic” XHTML 5 example:

..\..\bin\w2x -p webhelp.split-before-level 1
–o webhelp5 manual.docx out\webhelp\manual.html

Important tip

Generating any of the multi-page, styled HTML formats should work great if, for the DOCX
document to be converted, you can use MS-Word's "References > Table of Contents" button
to automatically create a table of contents.

Note that the source DOCX document is not required to have a table of contents, but MS-
Word should allow to automatically create a good one.

In other words, automatically creating a table of contents using MS-Word is the best way to
check that your outline levels are OK.

18
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

5 Going further with w2x

When you execute the following command:

..\..\bin\w2x –o docbook5 manual.docx out\manual.xml

you execute in fact a sequence of 3 conversion steps:

1. Convert the DOCX file to a styled, valid, XHTML 1.0 Transitional document, looking very much
like the input DOCX file.
2. Apply a number of XED scripts to this document to convert CSS styles into semantic tags. For
example, numbered paragraphs are converted to proper ordered lists .
The entry point of these “semantic” XED scripts is found in w2x_install_dir/xed/main.xed.
The XED scripts edit in place the input XHTML document. Therefore, the result of this step is the
same XHTML document, still valid, but this time, containing no CSS styles whatsoever.
3. Apply an XSLT 1.0 stylesheet to the unstyled, valid, XHTML 1.0 Transitional document in order to
generate the desired semantic XML format.
The XSLT stylesheets are all found in w2x_install_dir/xslt/. In the above case, we want to
generate DocBook v5, therefore we use w2x_install_dir/xslt/docbook5.xslt.

This sequence of conversion steps can be made visible in every detail by specifying the –vv option (very
verbose) :

..\..\bin\w2x –vv –o docbook5 manual.docx out\manual.xml

VERBOSE: Converting "manual.docx" to XHTML...

DEBUG: convert.xhtml-file=C:\w2x-1_5_0\doc\manual\out\manual.xhtml

VERBOSE: Editing XHTML document using "C:\w2x-1_5_0\xed\main.xed"...

DEBUG: edit.xed-url-or-file=file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xed/main.xed
DEBUG: Loading script "file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xed/main.xed"...
DEBUG: Loading script "file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xed/after-translate.xed"...
[...]
DEBUG: Loading script "file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xed/before-save.xed"...

VERBOSE: Transforming document using "C:\w2x-1_5_0\xslt\docbook5.xslt" then saving it

to "C:\w2x-1_5_0\doc\manual\out\manual.xml"...
DEBUG: transform.out-file=C:\w2x-1_5_0\doc\manual\out\manual.xml transform.xslt-url-
or-file=file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xslt/docbook5.xslt
[...]

In fact, option –o docbook5 is a shorthand for the following w2x command-line options:

 -c
Execute a Convert step called “convert”.
 -p convert.xhtml-file C:\w2x-1_5_0\doc\manual\out\manual.xhtml

Pass the above xhtml-file parameter to the conversion step called “convert”.

19
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

 -e
Execute an Edit step called “edit”.
 -p edit.xed-url-or-file file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xed/main.xed
Pass the above xed-url-or-file parameter to the conversion step called “edit”.
 -t
Execute a Transform step called “transform”.
 -p transform.xslt-url-or-file file:/C:/w2x-1_5_0/xslt/docbook5.xslt
 -p transform.out-file C:\w2x-1_5_0\doc\manual\out\manual.xml
Pass the above xslt-url-or-file and out-file parameters to the conversion step called
“transform”.

If you need to learn about the details of the conversion steps to be executed, the simplest is
to use the –liststeps command-line option.
Example: w2x –o docbook5 –liststeps.

The order of the –c, -e and –t options is significant because it means: first convert, then edit and finally
transform. The order of the –p (and –pu) options is not important, as a parameter name must be
prefixed by the name of the step to which it applies.

The Convert, Edit and Transform steps are the most important steps. There are other conversion steps
though, which are all documented in chapter Conversion step reference. Moreover a Java™ programmer
may implement its own custom conversion steps5 and instruct the w2x command-line to give them
names (required to pass them parameters) and to execute them. See option –step.

A w2x processor executes a sequence of conversion steps whatever the output format. Simply the
conversion steps, their order, number and parameters, depend on the desired output format. This is
depicted in the figure below.

5
A custom conversion step derives from abstract class com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.ProcessStep.

20
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Figure 3 Anatomy of a w2x processor

X M Lm in d W or d To X M L Pr oce ssor

XHTML+ XHTML+
CSS Edit CSS
Save XHTML+
(m ain-st yled.xed)
CSS

XHTML+ XHTML+
CSS Edit CSS Mult i-page
Split
(m ain-st yled.xed) XHTML+
CSS

XHTML+ XHTML+
CSS Edit CSS Web Help
(m ain-st yled.xed) generat or Web Help
DOCX Convert

XHTML+ XHTML+
CSS Edit CSS EPUB
(m ain-st yled.xed) generat or EPUB

XHTML+ Sem ant ic Transform

CSS Edit XHTML (t opic.xslt ,
DocBook DITA
(m ain.xed) docbook.xslt , t opic
et c)

XHTML+ Sem ant ic DITA

Transform t opic Transform XHTML
CSS Edit XHTML DITA
(t opic.xslt ) (m ap.xslt ,
(m ain.xed) m ap
bookm ap.xslt )

DITA
bookm ap

The first sequence of in the above figure reads as follows: in order to convert a DOCX file to styled
XHTML, first convert the DOCX file to a XHTML+CSS document, then “polish up” this document (e.g.
process consecutive paragraphs having identical borders) using XED script w2x_install_dir/xed/main-
styled.xed, and finally save the possibly modified XHTML+CSS document to disk.

5.1 Stock XED scripts

XMLmind Word to XML comes with two stock “main” XED scripts:

w2x_install_dir/xed/main-styled.xed
Invokes XED scripts used to “polish up” the styled XHTML 1.0 Transitional document created by the
Convert step (e.g. process consecutive paragraphs having identical borders).

w2x_install_dir/xed/main.xed
Invokes XED scripts used to prepare the generation of semantic XML of all kinds: XHTML, DocBook,
DITA. These scripts leverage the CSS styles and classes found in the styled XHTML 1.0 Transitional
document created by the Convert step. They translate these CSS styles and classes (e.g. numbered
paragraph) into semantic tags (e.g. ol/li).

Both the above “main” XED scripts are organized as sequences of simpler, short, XED scripts. Using –p or
–pu options, these short scripts may be replaced or removed and may be passed parameters. It’s also
possible to insert custom scripts before or after any of these short scripts.

21
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Excerpts from w2x_install_dir/xed/main-styled.xed:

script(defined("before.init-styles", ""));
script(defined("do.init-styles", "init-styles.xed"));
script(defined("after.init-styles", ""));

script(defined("before.title-styled", ""));
script(defined("do.title-styled", "title-styled.xed"));
script(defined("after.title-styled", ""));

script(defined("before.remove-pis", ""));
script(defined("do.remove-pis", "remove-pis.xed"));
script(defined("after.remove-pis", ""));

script(defined("before.expand-tabs", ""));
script(defined("do.expand-tabs", "expand-tabs.xed"));
script(defined("after.expand-tabs", ""));

script(defined("before.borders", ""));
script(defined("do.borders", "borders.xed"));
script(defined("after.borders", ""));

script(defined("before.number-footnotes", ""));
script(defined("do.number-footnotes", "number-footnotes.xed"));
script(defined("after.number-footnotes", ""));

script(defined("before.finish-styles", ""));
script(defined("do.finish-styles", "finish-styles.xed"));
script(defined("after.finish-styles", ""));

Examples:

 Remove script title-styled.xed:

-p edit.do.title-styled “”

 Replace script borders.xed by custom script “C:\Users\john\w2x tests\MyBorders.xed”:

-pu edit.do.borders “C:\Users\john\w2 tests\MyBorders.xed”

 Pass parameter finish-styles.css-uri to script finish-styles.xed:

-p edit.finish-styles.css-uri css/manual.css

By convention (this is not strictly required), the name of a parameter which applies to a given
XED script is prefixed with the basename without any file extension of this script. Hence the full
names of most parameters of Edit steps have the following syntax:
step_name.script_name.parameter_name. Examples:

-p edit.prune.preserve “p-ProgramListing”

22
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

-p edit.inlines.convert “c-Code code”

 Execute script customize\patch_manual.xed before script finish-styles.xed:

-pu edit.before.finish-styles customize\patch_manual.xed

 Execute script customize\patch_manual.xed after script borders.xed:

-pu edit.after.borders customize\patch_manual.xed

23
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

6 Customizing the output of w2x

6.1 Customizing the XHTML+CSS files generated by w2x

6.1.1 Using a XED script to modify the styles embedded in the XHTML+CSS file
By default, w2x adds a number of CSS rules to the /html/head/style element of the generated
XHTML+CSS file. Example: excerpts from w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/manual.html:

<style type="text/css">
body {
counter-reset: n-1-0 0 n-1-1 0 n-1-2 0 n-17-0 0 n-20-0 0;
font-family: Calibri;
font-size: 11pt;
}
...
</style>

A XED script allows to modify, not only the nodes of an XHTML document, but also its “CSS styles”.
These “CSS styles” may be either style properties contained in the style attribute of an element or class
names found in the class attribute of an element or the CSS rules of the document.

Therefore, when the desired customization is limited, suffice to execute a XED script in order to modify
the XHTML+CSS document created by the Convert step. Example:

w2x -pu edit.before.finish-styles customize\patch_manual.xed

manual.docx out\manual.html

where w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/customize/patch_manual.xed contains:

set-rule(".p-ProgramListing", "white-space", "pre");

The above line adds CSS property “white-space: pre;” to the CSS rule having “.p-ProgramListing” as
its selector. This CSS rule corresponds to custom paragraph6 style called “ProgramListing”.

Besides XED command set-rule, the following commands allow to edit the CSS styles contained in the
XHTML+CSS document created by the Convert step: add-class, add-rule, remove-class, remove-
rule, set-style.

6.1.2 Appending custom styles to the styles embedded in the XHTML+CSS file
XED script w2x_install_dir/xed/finish-styles.xed has a optional custom-styles-url-or-file
parameter which makes it easy customizing the automatically generated CSS styles.

6
It’s a paragraph style because the CSS style name has a “p-“ prefix.

24
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

This parameter may be used to specify the location of a CSS file. The custom CSS styles found in
specified file are simply appended to the automatically generated CSS styles. Example:

Example:

w2x -pu edit.finish-styles.custom-styles-url-or-file customize\custom.css

manual.docx out\manual_restyled.html

where customize\custom.css contains:

body {
font-family: sans-serif;
}

.p-Heading1,
.p-Heading2,
.p-Heading3,
.p-Heading4,
.p-Heading5,
.p-Heading6 {
font-family: serif;
color: #17365D;
padding: 1pt;
border-bottom: 1pt solid #4F81BD;
margin-bottom: 10pt;
margin-left: 0pt;
text-indent: 0pt;
}

.p-Heading1 {
border-bottom-width: 2pt;
}

...

.c-FootnoteReference,
.c-EndnoteReference {
font-size: smaller;
}

6.1.3 Using an external CSS file rather than embedded CSS styles
XED script w2x_install_dir/xed/finish-styles.xed has a optional css-uri parameter which allows
to specify the CSS file where all CSS rules, whether automatically generated or custom, are to be saved.

Same example as above but using an external CSS file rather than embedded CSS styles:

w2x -p edit.finish-styles.css-uri manual_restyled_css/manual.css

-pu edit.finish-styles.custom-styles-url-or-file customize\custom.css
manual.docx out\manual_restyled.html

25
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

All the CSS styles, whether automatically generated or the custom ones found in
customize\custom.css, end up in manual_restyled_css\manual.css. Moreover,
out\manual_restyled.html contains a link to manual_restyled_css\manual.css.

<link href="manual_restyled_css/manual.css"
rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

6.1.4 Combining all the above methods

It is of course possible to combine all the above methods. For example, the following w2x command is
used to create w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/manual_restyled.html:

w2x -pu edit.before.finish-styles customize\patch_manual_restyled.xed

-p edit.finish-styles.css-uri manual_restyled_css/custom.css
-pu edit.finish-styles.custom-styles-url-or-file customize\custom.css
manual.docx out\manual_restyled.html

where w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/customize/patch_manual_restyled.xed contains:

for-each /html/body/p[get-class("^p-Heading\d$")] {
set-variable("class", get-class("^n-\d+-\d+$"));
if $class != '' {
set-variable("selector", concat(".", $class, ":after"));
if find-rule($selector) >= 0 {
remove-rule($selector);

set-variable("selector", concat(".", $class, ":before"));

set-rule($selector, "float");
set-rule($selector, "width");
set-rule($selector, "content",
concat(get-rule($selector, "content"), ' " "'));
set-rule($selector, "display", "inline");
}
}
}

The above XED script:

1. Delete CSS rules like this one:

.n-1-0:after {
clear: both;
content: "";
display: block;
}

2. Modify CSS rules like this one:

.n-1-0:before {
content: counter(n-1-0);

26
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

counter-increment: n-1-0;
float: left;
width: 21.6pt;
}

which becomes:

.n-1-0:before {
content: counter(n-1-0) " ";
counter-increment: n-1-0;
display: inline;
}

This script is useful because otherwise adding a bottom border to headings gives an ugly result. While
the contents of the heading is “underlined”, the CSS float containing the numbering value of the
heading is not.

Besides get-class, the following XPath extension functions may be used to access the CSS styles
contained in the XHTML+CSS document created by the Convert step: find-rule, font-size, get-rule,
get-style, lookup-length, lookup-style, style-count.

Why use XPath extension function get-class and not matches(@class,pattern)?

The answer is: because all class attributes have been removed by XED script
w2x_install_dir/xed/init-styles.xed.

This script “interns” the CSS rules found in the html/head/style element of the XHTML+CSS
document, the CSS styles directly set on some elements and the CSS classes set on some
elements.

This operation is needed to allow an efficient implementation of the following XPath

extension functions: find-rule, font-size, get-class, get-rule, get-style, lookup-
length, lookup-style, style-count, and of the following editing commands: add-class,
add-rule, remove-class, remove-rule, set-rule, set-style.

More information about “interned” CSS styles in command parse-styles (command

invoked by w2x_install_dir/xed/init-styles.xed) and inverse command unparsed-
styles (command invoked by w2x_install_dir/xed/finish-styles.xed).

6.2 Customizing the semantic XML files generated by w2x

6.2.1 Converting custom character styles to semantic tags
Converting a custom character style to an XHTML element (possibly having specific attributes) is simple
and does not require writing a XED script. Suffice for that to pass parameter inlines.convert to the
Edit step.

27
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Example 1: convert text spans having a “Code” character style to XHTML element code:

-p edit.inlines.convert "c-Code code"

Notice that the name of character style in the generated XHTML+CSS file is always prefixed
by “c-“.

The syntax for the value of parameter inlines.convert is:

value  conversion [ S ‘!’ S conversion ]*

conversion  style_spec S XHTML_element_name [ S attribute ]*
style_spec  style_name | style_pattern
style_pattern  ‘/’ pattern ’/’ | ‘^’ pattern ‘$’
attribute  attribute_name ‘=’ quoted_attribute_value
quoted_attribute_value  “’” value “’” | ‘”’ value ‘”’

Example 2: in addition to what’s done in above example 1, convert text spans having a “Abbrev”
character style to XHTML element abbr having a title=”???” attribute:

-p edit.inlines.convert "c-Code code ! c-Abbrev abbr title='???'"

What if the semantic XHTML created by the Edit step is then converted to DITA or DocBook by the
means of a Transform step?

In the case of XHTML elements code and abbr, there is nothing else to do because the stock XSLT
stylesheets already support these elements:

 w2x_install_dir/xslt/topic.xslt converts XHTML code to DITA codeph and XHTML abbr to

DITA keyword,
 w2x_install_dir/xslt/docbook.xslt converts XHTML code to DocBook code and XHTML
abbr to DocBook abbrev.

The general case which also requires using custom XSLT stylesheets is explained in section The general
case.

6.2.2 Converting custom paragraph styles to semantic tags

Converting a custom paragraph style to an XHTML element (possibly having specific attributes) is simple
and does not require writing a XED script. Suffice for that to pass parameter blocks.convert to the Edit
step.

Example 1.a: convert paragraphs having a “ProgramListing” paragraph style to XHTML element pre:

-p edit.blocks.convert "p-ProgramListing pre"

28
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Notice that the name of paragraph style in the generated XHTML+CSS file is always prefixed
by “p-“.

If you use the above blocks.convert specification, it will work fine, except that you’ll end up with
several consecutive pre elements (one pre per line of program listing). This is clearly not what you want. You
want consecutive pre elements to be merged into a single pre element. Fortunately implementing this
too is quite simple.

Example 1.b: convert paragraphs having a “ProgramListing” paragraph style to XHTML element span
(having grouping attributes; more about this below):

-p edit.blocks.convert "p-ProgramListing span g:id='pre' g:container='pre'"

When any of the target XHTML elements have grouping attributes (g:id='pre'7, g:container='pre',
in the above example), then w2x_install_dir/xed/blocks.xed automatically invokes the group()
command at the end of the conversions. This has the effect of grouping consecutive <span g:id='pre'
g:container='pre'> into a common pre parent element.

Given the fact that XED command group() automatically removes grouping attributes when done and
that w2x_install_dir/xed/finish.xed discards all useless span elements, this leaves us with clean
pre elements containing text8.

The syntax for the value of parameter blocks.convert is:

value  conversion [ S ‘!’ S conversion ]*

conversion  style_spec S XHTML_element_name [ S attribute ]*
style_spec  style_name | style_pattern
style_pattern  ‘/’ pattern ’/’ | ‘^’ pattern ‘$’
attribute  attribute_name ‘=’ quoted_attribute_value
quoted_attribute_value  “’” value “’” | ‘”’ value ‘”’

Example 3: in addition to what’s done in above example 1.b, convert paragraphs having a “Term”
paragraph style to XHTML element dt, convert paragraphs having a “Definition” paragraph style to
XHTML element dl and group consecutive dt and dl elements into a common dl parent:

-p edit.blocks.convert "p-Term dt g:id='dl' g:container='dl' !

p-Definition dd g:id='dl' g:container='dl' !
p-ProgramListing span g:id='pre' g:container='pre'"

7
Any value would do (e.g. g:id=”foo” would have worked as well). Suffice for consecutive elements to be
grouped to all have the same g:id attribute.
8
Unless you specify:
-p edit.prune.preserve "p-ProgramListing"
script w2x_install_dir/xed/prune.xed will cause open lines to be stripped from the generated pre element.

29
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

What if the semantic XHTML created by the Edit step is then converted to DITA or DocBook by the
means of a Transform step?

In the case of XHTML elements pre, dt, dd and dl, there is nothing else to do because the stock XSLT
stylesheets already support these elements.

The general case which also requires using custom XSLT stylesheets is explained in section The general
case.

6.2.3 The general case

In the general case, customizing the semantic XML files generated by w2x requires writing both a XED
script and an XSLT stylesheet.

For example, let’s suppose we want to group all the paragraphs having a “Note” paragraph style and to
generate for such groups DocBook and DITA note elements.

The following blocks.convert parameter would allow to very easily create the desired groups:

-p edit.blocks.convert "p-Note p g:id='note_group_member'

g:container='div class=\”role-note\” ’"

However this would leave us with two unsolved problems:

a. A paragraph having a “Note” paragraph style often starts with bold text “Note:”. We want to
eliminate this redundant label.
b. The stock XSLT stylesheets will not convert XHTML element <div class=”role-note”> to a
DocBook or DITA note element.

A custom XED script

The first problem is solved by the following w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/customize/notes.xed

script:

namespace "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
namespace html = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
namespace g = "urn:x-mlmind:namespace:group";

for-each /html/body//p[get-class("p-Note")] {
delete-text("note:\s*", "i");
if content-type() <= 1 and not(@id) {
delete();
} else {
remove-class("p-Note");
set-attribute("g:id", "note_group_member");
set-attribute("g:container", "div class='role-note'");
}
}

30
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

group();

The “Note:” label, if any, is deleted using XED command delete-text. If doing this creates a useless
empty (content-type() <= 1) paragraph, then delete this paragraph using XED command delete.

The above script is executed after stock script w2x_install_dir/xed/blocks.xed by the means of the
following w2x command-line option:

-pu edit.after.blocks customize\notes.xed

A custom XSLT stylesheet

The second problem is solved by the following

w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/customize/custom_topic.xslt XSLT 1.0 stylesheet:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
exclude-result-prefixes="h">

<xsl:import href="w2x:xslt/topic.xslt"/>

<xsl:template match="h:div[@class = 'role-note']">

<note>
<xsl:call-template name="processCommonAttributes"/>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</note>
</xsl:template>
...
</xsl:stylesheet>

This stylesheet, which imports stock w2x_install_dir/xslt/topic.xslt, is used for the topic, map
and bookmap output formats (see –o option). Similar, very simple, stylesheets have been developed for
the docbook and docbook5 output formats.

Note: Something like “w2x:xslt/topic.xslt” is an absolute URL supported by w2x. “w2x:”

is an URL prefix (defined in the automatic XML catalog used by w2x) which specifies the location of the
parent directory of both the xed/ and xslt/ subdirectories.

The above stylesheet replaces the stock one by the means of the following w2x command-line option:

-o topic -t customize\custom_topic.xslt

Do not forget to specify the –t option after the –o option, because it’s the –o option which implicitly
invokes stock w2x_install_dir/xslt/topic.xslt (this has been explained in chapter Going further with w2x)
and we want to use –t to override the use of the stock XSLT stylesheet.

31
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Tip: You’ll find a template for custom XED scripts and several templates for custom XSLT
stylesheets in w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/templates/.

For example, in order to create

w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/customize/custom_topic.xslt, we started by copying
template XSLT stylesheet w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/templates/template_topic.xslt.

32
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

6.3 Generating XML conforming to a custom schema

In order to use w2x to convert a DOCX input file to an XML output file conforming to your custom
schema, all you have to do is write a custom XSLT 1.0 stylesheet converting the “semantic” XHTML 1.0
Transitional generated by the Edit step to your custom schema.

Let’s call your custom XSLT 1.0 stylesheet “C:\Users\John\foo\xsl\xhtml_to_foo.xsl”. Command-

line tool w2x must then be passed the following options:

 -c
Execute a Convert step called “convert”.
 -e
Execute an Edit step called “edit”.
 -pu edit.xed-url-or-file w2x:xed/main.xed
Pass this stock XED script (converting the styled XHTML 1.0 Transitional created by the Convert
step to “semantic” XHTML) to the conversion step called “edit”.
 -t
Execute a Transform step called “transform”.
 -pu transform.xslt-url-or-file "C:\Users\John\foo\xsl\xhtml_to_foo.xsl"
Pass your custom XSLT 1.0 stylesheet to the conversion step called “transform”.

Stock XED script w2x:xed/main.xed creates a number of semantic XHTML elements having a class
attribute starting with “role-“. Examples: <div class=”role-section1”>, <div class=”role-
section2”>, <div class=”role-figure”>, <div class=”role-figcaption”>, <a class=”role-
footnote-ref”>, <div class=”role-footnote”>, <a class=”role-xref”>, <span class=”role-
index-term”>, etc. To learn how to process these elements, the simplest is to look how this is done in a
stock XSLT stylesheet such as “w2x_install_dir/xslt/topic.xslt” or
“w2x_install_dir/xslt/docbook.xslt”.

33
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

7 The w2x command-line utility

If the .dmg distribution has been used to install XMLmind Word To XML on the Mac, the w2x
command-line utility is found in WordToXML.app/Contents/Resources/w2x/bin/.

Usage: w2x [-version] [-v|-vv] [Options] [-liststeps] in_docx_file out_file

Options are:

-o format
This option automatically adds all the steps needed to convert input DOCX file to an output file
having specified format.

Possible formats: docbook, docbook5, topic, map, bookmap, xhtml_css (single-page styled HTML, that is,
single-page XHTML+CSS), xhtml_strict, xhtml_loose, xhtml1_1, xhtml5, frameset (multi-page styled
HTML), frameset_strict (multi-page XHTML 1.0 Strict), frameset_loose (multi-page XHTML 1.0 Transitional),
frameset1_1 (multi-page XHTML 1.1), frameset5 (multi-page XHTML 5.0), webhelp (Web Help containing styled
HTML), webhelp_strict (Web Help containing XHTML 1.0 Strict), webhelp_loose (Web Help containing
XHTML 1.0 Transitional), webhelp1_1 (Web Help containing XHTML 1.1), webhelp5 (Web Help containing
XHTML 5.0), epub (EPUB 2 containing styled XHTML 1.1), epub1_1 (EPUB 2 containing semantic XHTML 1.1).

The default output format is: xhtml_css (single-page styled HTML, that is, single-page XHTML+CSS).

-p name value
Set parameter name to value.

Use parameter step_name.param_name to parametrize the step called step_name.

Because they are used to parameterize named steps, the order of –p and –pu options relatively to
options specifying conversions steps (-c, -e, -t, -step, etc) is not significant. For example: “-p
convert.charset UTF-8 -c” is equivalent to “-c -p convert.charset UTF-8”.

-pu name URL_or_file

Same as -p, except that parameter value URL_or_file is first converted to an URL.

URL_or_file is an absolute or relative URL (relative to current -f options file if any, to current
working directory otherwise) or the filename of an existing file or directory.

-c
Add or replace “convert” step. This step converts input DOCX file to an in-memory XHTML +CSS
document.

-l
Add or replace “load” step. This step, mainly used to test XED scripts, loads input XML file.

34
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

-e xed_URL_or_file
Add or replace “edit” step. This step edits in place input XHTML document using XED script
xed_URL_or_file.

-e2 xed_URL_or_file
Add or replace “edit2” step. This step edits in place input XHTML document using XED script
xed_URL_or_file.

-t xslt_URL_or_file
Add or replace “transform” step. This step transforms input XML document or file using XSLT
stylesheet xslt_URL_or_file.

The output file is specified by parameter transform.out-file.

-t2 xslt_URL_or_file
Add or replace “transform2” step. This step transforms input XML document or file using XSLT
stylesheet xslt_URL_or_file.

The output file is specified by parameter transform2.out-file.

-s
Add or replace “save” step. This step saves to disk input XHTML document.

The output file is specified by parameter save.out-file.

-step:java_class_name:step_name
Add or replace step called step_name by an instance of Java™ class java_class_name deriving from
com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.ProcessStep.

-f options_URL_or_file
Load one or more of the above options from options_URL_or_file, a plain UTF-8 text file

-v
-vv
-vvv
Verbose. More Vs means more verbose.

-version
Print version number and exit.

-liststeps
List the conversion steps to be executed and exit. This option is useful to determine how to
customize the conversion steps. Example:

$ w2x -o bookmap -liststeps

35
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

-step:com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.ConvertStep:convert
-p convert.create-mathml-object no
-p convert.set-column-number yes
-step:com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.EditStep:edit
-p edit.xed-url-or-file file:/opt/w2x/xed/main.xed
-step:com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.TransformStep:transform
-p transform.out-file %{~pnO}.dita
-p transform.single-topic no
-p transform.xslt-url-or-file file:/opt/w2x/xslt/topic.xslt
-step:com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.TransformStep:transform2
-p transform2.xslt-url-or-file file:/opt/w2x/xslt/bookmap.xslt
-p transform2.topic-type %{transform.topic-type}
-p transform2.output-path %{~po}
-step:com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.DeleteFilesStep:cleanUp
-p cleanUp.files %{~pnO}.dita

7.1 Variables substituted in the parameter values passed to the –p and –pu
options
The following variables are substituted in the parameter values passed to the –p and –pu options.

Variable Description Example

%{I} Full path of the input DOCX file. C:\My Docs\report.docx
%{O} Full path of the output XML file. C:\My Docs\out\report.xml
%{i} Absolute URL of the input DOCX file:/C:/My%20Docs/report.docx
file.
%{o} Absolute URL of the output XML file:/C:/My%20Docs/out/report.xml
file.

Variables %{I}, %{O}, %{i} and %{o} may all contain one or more of following modifiers. First modifier
must be preceded by character “~”.

Modifier Description
n The name of the file or URL without any extension.
x The extension of the file or URL. Starts with “.”.
p The full path of the parent directory of the file or URL.

Note that combinations of modifiers other than “~nx”, “~pn”, “~pnx” do not make sense and that, for
example, %{~pnxI} is equivalent to %{I}.

Examples: let’s suppose that command-line argument in_docx_file (see above) is

“C:\My Docs\report.docx” and that argument out_file is “C:\My Docs\out\report.xml”.

 %{~nI} is replaced by “report”.

 %{~xI} is replaced by “.docx”.
 %{~pI} is replaced by “C:\My Docs”.
 %{~nxo} is replaced by “report.xml”.
 %{~pno} is replaced by “file:/C:/My%20Docs/out/report”.

36
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

7.2 Default conversion steps

If none of the options creating a step (-l, -c, -e, -e2, -t, -t2, -s, -step) have been specified, w2x
automatically adds the equivalent of –o xhtml_css, which consists in the following conversion steps:

 -c
 -e
 -p edit.xed-url-or-file w2x:xed/main-styled.xed
 -s

The above options convert the input DOCX file to clean, styled, valid XHTML. The resulting output file is
not indented.

Note: Something like “w2x:xed/main-styled.xed” is an absolute URL supported by w2x.

“w2x:” is an URL prefix (defined in the automatic XML catalog used by w2x) which specifies the location
of the parent directory of both the xed/ and xslt/ subdirectories.

7.3 Automatic conversion step parameters

If the first conversion step is a Convert step, the following parameters are automatically added by w2x
(unless, of course, they have already been specified by the user):

 If out_file extension starts with “htm” or “shtm”,

-p step_name.charset UTF-8
The charset parameter allows to get Web browsers consider the generated document as being
HTML, and not XHTML.
 -pu step_name.xhtml-file out_file_with_an_xhtml_extension

If the last conversion step is a Save step, Transform step, Split step, Web Help step or EPUB step the
following parameters are automatically added by w2x (unless, of course, they have already been specified by the
user):

 -pu step_name.out-file out_file

37
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

8 Conversion step reference

8.1 Convert step

Convert input DOCX file to a styled, valid, XHTML 1.0 Transitional document. The result of this step is
this XHTML document.

For clarity, the “convert.” parameter name prefix is omitted here.

However when you’ll pass any of the following parameters to w2x, please do not forget this
prefix. Example: -p convert.resource-directory images.

Parameters:

Name Value Description

charset A valid character When a charset is specified, a meta element is
encoding (e.g. UTF-8, added to the head element of the generated
Windows-1252). document:
Default: no charset,  <meta charset=”charset”/> if
add an XML parameter version is “5.0”,
declaration.  <meta content=”text/html;
charset=charset” http-
equiv=”Content-Type” /> otherwise.
If the specified charset is “UTF-8”, then the XML
declaration (<?xml version=”1.0”
encoding=”UTF-8”?>) is not to added to the
generated document. This allows to get Web
browsers consider the generated document as
being HTML, and not XHTML.
converted-image- A list of image file When the input DOCX file contains an image not
extensions
extensions separated having any of the file extensions specified in the
by space characters. converted-image-extensions list, attempt to
Default: “svg png convert this image to one of the formats of this
jpeg”. list.
Each format is considered in turn, that’s why w2x
will attempt to convert a WMF image to SVG first,
before considering PNG and JPEG.
create-mathml- “yes” | “no” | “auto” When converting MS-Word math (that is, OpenXML
object
Default: “auto”. math) to MathML:
yes
Generate an external file containing the
converted MathML element and insert an
object element pointing to the generated
“.mml” file. Example: <object
data="doc_files/math-010.mml"
type="application/mathml+xml"/>.

38
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

no
Embed the converted MathML element in
the XHTML document created by this step.
auto
Embed the converted MathML element in
the XHTML document but only if parameter
version is set to 5.09.
default-lang A valid language code if parameter set-lang is not specified and if the
(e.g. en, fr-CA). main language of the document cannot
No default. determined by examining the contents of the
input DOCX file, set the lang attribute of the
html element to this value.

About East Asian languages

Due to a limitation, it is recommended

to specify for example –
p convert.set-lang ja-JP or –
p convert.default-lang ja-JP
when converting a document written
mainly in Japanese.

When parameter convert.set-lang

or parameter convert.default-lang
is set to a language code starting with
ja, zh or ko, then it is attribute
w:lang/@w:eastAsia which is used to
determine the language of a text span
and not attribute w:lang/@w:val.

Note that –p convert.default-

lang ja-JP is just used as a hint to
favor attribute w:lang/@w:eastAsia
over attribute wlang/@w:val. Given
the way MS-Word sets these two
attributes, using parameter –
p convert.default-lang ja-JP will
not cause a vastly incorrect detection
of the language when converting a
German DOCX file for example.

9
Because only XHTML 5 documents may embed MathML. With any other version of XHTML, this would cause the
document to become invalid.

39
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

lower-case- A boolean: true (same Not for general use. Specifying this parameter as
resource-names
as: yes | on | 1) | false true is needed to keep quiet epubcheck on
(same as: no | off | 0). platforms where filenames are case-sensitive
Default: false. (e.g. Linux).
resource-directory A file path. Specifies the file path of the directory which is to
Default: if parameter contain copies of the images referenced in the
xhtml-file is input DOCX file.
specified, basename of A relative file path is relative to the value of
xhtml-file, without parameter xhtml-file.
an extension, but Note that, if it already exists, a resource directory
followed by “_files”; specified this way is not automatically made
otherwise the absolute empty by w2x before being used to store
path of an resources. Only the “automatic”, default,
automatically created output_file_basename_files/ folder is
temporary directory. automatically made empty by w2x (if this
“automatic” folder already exists).
resource-prefix A non-empty string not Specifies a prefix to be prepended to the names
containing the file of resource files created by w2x.
separator character This prefix is useful when used in conjunction
(“/” or “\”). with parameter resource-directory and when
Default: none, no several files generated by w2x share the same
prefix. resource directory.
set-column-number A boolean: true (same If specified as true, insert in each table cell a
as: yes | on | 1) | false column-number processing-instruction containing
(same as: no | off | 0). the column number of this cell. First column is
Default: false. column #1.
Example:
<?column-number 1?>
This processing-instruction greatly helps in
generating CALS tables (DocBook, DITA)
containing cells spanning several columns.
set-lang A valid language code if specified, set the lang attribute of the html
(e.g. en, fr-CA). element to this value.
No default: set the
lang attribute of the
html element after About East Asian languages
examining the
contents of the input Due to a limitation, it is recommended
DOCX file. to specify for example –
p convert.set-lang ja-JP or –
p convert.default-lang ja-JP
when converting a document written
mainly in Japanese.

40
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

When parameter convert.set-lang

or parameter convert.default-lang
is set to a language code starting with
ja, zh or ko, then it is attribute
w:lang/@w:eastAsia which is used to
determine the language of a text span
and not attribute w:lang/@w:val.

version 1.0_transitional Specifies which XHTML version to generate,

(same as: 1.0_loose | hence which <!DOCTYPE> to add to generated
1) | 1.0_strict | 1.1 XHTML document.
| 5.0 (same as: 5) | “”. Note that XHTML 5.0 has no DTD, hence no
Default: <!DOCTYPE> for this version.
1.0_transitional. The empty string “” means: generate XHTML 1.0
Transitional , but do not add a <!DOCTYPE>.
xhtml-file A file path. If the generated XHTML document was saved to
No default . disk, this would be the path of its save file.
When specified (which is strongly
recommended), this file path is used to give a
base URL to the generated XHTML document.

8.2 Delete files step

Delete files or directories having specified path or matching specified glob pattern. The input of this
step is ignored. The result of this step is thus equal to its input.

This step is used for example when generating a DITA map or bookmap. It is used to delete the
intermediate topic file created by the first Transform step.

Parameters (for clarity, the “cleanUp.” parameter name prefix is omitted here):

Name Value Description

files A file path or glob Specifies which files or directories are to be
pattern. deleted. A relative file path or glob pattern is
No default (required). relative to the current working directory.

8.3 Edit step

Edit in place input XHTML document using a XED script. The result of this step is the same XHTML
document, but modified by the script.

For clarity, the “edit.” parameter name prefix is omitted here.

However when you’ll pass any of the following parameters to w2x, please do not forget this
prefix. Example: -p edit.ids.generate-section-ids yes.

41
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Parameters:

Name Value Description

xed-url-or-file An absolute URL or the Specifies which XED script should be used to edit
path of an existing file. the input XHTML document. A relative file path is
No default (required). relative to the current working directory.

Any other parameter is passed to the XED script as a XED global variable.

XMLmind Word to XML (w2x for short) comes with two stock “main” XED scripts:

w2x:xed/main-styled.xed
Invokes XED scripts used to “polish up” the styled XHTML 1.0 Transitional document created by the
Convert step (e.g. process consecutive paragraphs having identical borders).

w2x:xed/main.xed
Invokes XED scripts used to prepare the generation of semantic XML of all kinds: XHTML, DocBook,
DITA. These scripts leverage the CSS styles and classes found in the styled XHTML 1.0 Transitional
document created by the Convert step. They translate these CSS styles and classes (e.g. numbered
paragraph) into semantic tags (e.g. ol/li).

Note: Something like “w2x:xed/main.xed” is an absolute URL supported by w2x. “w2x:” is an

URL prefix (defined in the automatic XML catalog used by w2x) which specifies the location of the
parent directory of both the xed/ and xslt/ subdirectories.

Table 1 Parameters common to w2x:xed/main-styled.xed and w2x:xed/main.xed

Name Value Description

finish-styles.css- An absolute or relative Global variable defined in w2x:xed/finish-
uri
“file:” URI. styles.xed.
Default: “”. “Interned” Store “interned” CSS styles, if any, in the CSS
CSS styles, if any, are (UTF-8 encoded) file having this URI. A relative
stored in a head/style URI is relative to the URI specified by parameter
element. xhtml-file.
More information about “interned” CSS styles in
command parse-styles (command invoked by
w2x:xed/init-styles.xed) and inverse
command unparsed-styles (command invoked
by w2x:xed/finish-styles.xed).
finish-styles. An absolute URL or a Global variable defined in w2x:xed/finish-
custom-styles-url-
or-file filename. A relative styles.xed.
filename is relative to Specifies the location of a CSS file. The custom
the current working CSS styles found in specified file are simply
directory.

42
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

Default: “” (no custom appended to the automatically generated CSS
styles). styles.
Using this variable is the easiest way to customize
the automatically generated CSS styles.

When generating multi-page styled or

semantic XHTML of any kind (frameset,
Web Help, EPUB)

Please use finish-styles. custom-

styles-url-or-file to specify
custom CSS styles.

No need to specify finish-

styles.css-uri as all the CSS styles
are anyway stored into an external
“.css” file having the same basename
as the main output file.

finish- “yes” | “no” | “auto” Global variable defined in w2x:xed/finish-

styles.mathjax
Default: “no”. styles.xed.
Very few web browsers (Firefox) can natively
render MathML. Fortunately, there is MathJax.
MathJax is a JavaScript display engine for
mathematics that works in all browsers.

yes
Add a <script> element loading MathJax to
the <html>/<head> element of the generated
XHTML file.
auto
Same as “yes”, but add <script> only when
the generated XHTML file contains MathML.
finish- String. Global variable defined in w2x:xed/finish-
styles.mathjax-url
Default value: the URL styles.xed.
pointing to the The URL allowing to load the MathJax engine
MathJax CDN, as configured for rendering MathML.
recommended in the Ignored unless parameter mathjax is set to “yes”
MathJax or “auto”.
documentation.
title.keep-title “yes” | “no” Global variable defined in w2x:xed/title.xed.
Default: “yes” when Default value “no” specifies that paragraphs
generating styled or having “p-Title” and “p-Subtitle” styles (to
semantic XHTML of all make it simple; see also parameters
kinds (single-page, title.title-style-names and

43
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

EPUB, etc), “no” when title.subtitle-style-names) are to be
generating any other converted only to head/title and to
format. head/meta name="description".
This simple behavior makes these titles invisible
to the user, though usable by programs such as
the XSLT stylesheets generating DITA or DocBook.
Value “yes” may be used to specify that
paragraphs having “p-Title” and “p-Subtitle”
styles are additionally converted to equivalent,
visible, XHTML elements.
These equivalent, visible, XHTML elements are
specified by parameters title.title-
container and title.subtitle-container.
title.title- An XHTML element Global variable defined in w2x:xed/title.xed.
container
name possibly followed Specifies the XHTML element to which a
by one or more paragraph having a “p-Title” style is to be
attributes. converted. An empty string value is equivalent to
Default: “” when “p”.
generating styled Ignored when parameter title.keep-title is
XHTML; otherwise “h1 “no”.
class='role-
document-title'” .
title.title-style- List of user-defined Global variable defined in w2x:xed/title.xed.
names
style names separated Specifies which user-defined paragraph styles
by space characters. should be considered to be equivalent to
Default: “” (empty list). standard style “p-Title”.
(Paragraph styles, whether user-defined or
standard, are given a “p-“ prefix by the Convert
step.)
title.subtitle- An XHTML element Global variable defined in w2x:xed/title.xed.
container
name possibly followed Specifies the XHTML element to which a
by one or more paragraph having a “p-Subtitle” style is to be
attributes. converted. An empty string value is equivalent to
Default: “” when “p”.
generating styled Ignored when parameter title.keep-title is
XHTML; otherwise “p “no”.
class='role-
document-subtitle'”.
title.subtitle- List of user-defined Global variable defined in w2x:xed/title.xed.
style-names
style names separated Specifies which user-defined paragraph styles
by space characters. should be considered to be equivalent to
Default: “” (empty list). standard style “p-Subtitle”.
(Paragraph styles, whether user-defined or
standard, are given a “p-“ prefix by the Convert
step.)

44
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Table 2 Parameters which are specific to w2x:xed/main-styled.xed

Name Value Description

remove-pis.except One or more Global variable defined in w2x:xed/remove-
processing-instructions pis.xed.
targets separated by Specifies which processing-instructions should be
space characters. kept in the styled HTML document.
Default: “” (remove all By default, all processing-instructions are
processing- removed from the styled HTML document. Such
instructions) processing-instructions are useful only when the
styled HTML document created by the Convert
step is used as an intermediate format in order to
generate semantic XML.

Table 3 Parameters which are specific to w2x:xed/main.xed

Name Value Description

before-save.allow- “yes” | “no”. Global variable defined in w2x:xed/before-
flow
Default: “no”. save.xed.
If “yes”, allow flow elements (e.g. li) to directly
contain text and inline elements.
If “no”, do not allow flow elements (e.g. li) to
directly contain text and inline elements. Instead
“wrap” these text and and inline elements in <p
class=”role-inline-wrapper”> elements.
The “no” option greatly eases the generation of
certain types of semantic XML (e.g. DocBook)
during the Transform step.
biblio.style-names List of user-defined style Global variable defined in w2x:xed/biblio.xed.
names separated by Specifies which user-defined paragraph styles
space characters. should be considered to be equivalent to
Default: “” (empty list). standard style “p-Bibliography”.
(Paragraph styles, whether user-defined or
standard, are given a “p-“ prefix by the Convert
step.)
blocks.convert A conversion Global variable defined in w2x:xed/blocks.xed.
specification. Specified paragraph styles are converted to
Default: “”. No specified XHTML elements. See below.
conversions other than
those performed by
w2x:xed/blocks.xed.
blocks.convert-to- A conversion Global variable defined in w2x:xed/blocks.xed.
pre
specification. Specified paragraph styles are converted to
Default: “”. specified XHTML elements. See below.

45
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

When using MS-Word, there two ways to
represent code samples:
1. Use a sequence of paragraphs having the
same style. Each paragraph contains one
line of the code sample. Let’s call the
style of these paragraphs Code1.
2. Use a single paragraph containing the
whole code sample, which means that
this single paragraph contains significant
whitespace and line breaks. Let’s call the
style of this paragraph Code2.
A sequence of Code1 paragraphs may be
converted to an XHTML pre using:
–p edit.blocks.convert "p-Code1 span
g:id='pre' g:container='pre'"
A Code2 paragraph may be converted to an
XHTML pre using:
–p edit.blocks.convert-to-pre "p-Code2
pre"
captions.style- List of user-defined style Global variable defined in
names
names separated by w2x:xed/captions.xed.
space characters. Specifies which user-defined paragraph styles
Default: “” (empty list). should be considered to be equivalent to
standard style “p-Caption”.
(Paragraph styles, whether user-defined or
standard, are given a “p-“ prefix by the Convert
step.)
convert-tabs.to- “yes” | “no”. Global variable defined in w2x:xed/convert-
table
Default: “no”. tabs.xed.
If set to “yes”, convert consecutive paragraphs
containing text runs aligned on tab stops to a
borderless table.
This option is turned off by default because, in
the general case, it's not possible to emulate tab
stops using tables.
convert- “yes” | “no”. Global variable defined in w2x:xed/convert-
tabs.unwrap-
paragraphs Default: “yes”. tabs.xed.
If set to “yes”, the cells contained in the
borderless table used to emulate tab stops
directly contain text runs rather than
paragraphs.
headings.convert A conversion Global variable defined in
specification. w2x:xed/headings.xed.
Default: “”. No
conversions other than

46
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

those performed by Specified paragraph styles are converted to
w2x:xed/headings.xed. specified XHTML heading elements (h1, h2, …,
h6). See below.
Note that by default, script headings.xed
automatically converts paragraphs having an
outline level to h1, h2, …, h6 headings.

ids.generate- “yes” | “no”. Global variable defined in w2x:xed/ids.xed.

section-ids
Default: “no”.
Ensure that all the sections found in the
semantic XHTML resulting from the conversion
of a DOCX file have a unique ID.
When this ID is missing, it is computed using the
content of the h1, h2, ..., h6 heading which is the
first child of the section. Example:
<div class="role-section2"
id="Title_of_this_section">
<h2>Title of this section</h2>
...
Setting ids.generate-section-ids to yes is
especially useful when converting a DOCX file to
a DITA map or bookmap. With this parameter,
the filenames of the topics referenced by the
generated map are guaranteed to have
meaningful values (e.g. "Introduction.dita"
rather than "d0e35.dita").
ids.section-id-max- An integer greater or Global variable defined in w2x:xed/ids.xed.
length
equal to 1.
Default: 32. Specifies the maximum length of the
automatically computed ID when parameter
ids.generate-section-ids is set to yes.
inlines.b-element, An element name Global variables defined in
inlines.big-
element, optionally followed by w2x:xed/inlines.xed.
inlines.i-element, attributes.
inlines.s-element, Defaults: "b", "big", By default, the Edit step converts a text span
inlines.small-
"i", "s", "small", having style="font-weight:bold" (as
element,
inlines.sub- "sub", "sup", "tt", "u". generated by the Convert step) to XHTML
element, element b. Specifying parameter –
inlines.sup-
p edit.inlines.b-element "strong" replaces
element,
inlines.tt-element, default b element by a strong element.
inlines.u-element
Similarly, alternate element names may be
specified using the following parameters:
inlines.sup-element, inlines.sup-element,
inlines.small-element, inlines.big-
element, inlines.s-element, inlines.u-

47
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

element, inlines.tt-element, inlines.i-
element.

Example 1: generate code rather than tt

elements: -p edit.inlines.tt-element
"code".

Example 2: do not generate small elements: -p

edit.inlines.small-element "span
style='font-size:x-small'" (notice how one
or more attributes may be specified too).

This facility is useful only when generating

semantic XHTML and all formats based on
semantic XHTML. Using it when generating DITA
or DocBook may give poor results.
inlines.convert A conversion Global variable defined in
specification. w2x:xed/inlines.xed.
Default: “”. No Specified character styles are converted to
conversions other than specified XHTML elements . See below.
those performed by
w2x:xed/inlines.xed.
inlines.generate- “yes” | “no”. Global variable defined in
big-small
Default: “yes”. w2x:xed/inlines.xed.
Specifies whether spans having a bigger
(respectively smaller) font size than their parent
elements should be converted to big
(respectively small) elements.
metas.keep Regular expression Global variable defined in w2x:xed/metas.xed.
matching part or all of
the name of the XHTML When generating semantic XML of any kind, all
meta. the XHTML meta elements but author,
description, dcterms.* are automatically
suppressed from the semantic XHTML 1.0
Transitional document generated by the Edit
step and used as an input by the Transform step.

If you want to keep some or all the meta

elements in this intermediate semantic XHTML
1.0 Transitional document, you may specify
-p edit.metas.keep regexp.

Examples: -p edit metas.keep ".*" keeps all

metas; -p edit metas.keep "^dc\." keep all

48
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

metas having a name starting with "dc." (e.g.
<meta name="dc.subject" content="..."/>).
prune.preserve List of user-defined style Global variable defined in w2x:xed/prune.xed.
names separated by Empty paragraphs having a user-defined style
space characters. found in this list will not be deleted by
Default: “” (empty list). w2x:xed/prune.xed.
remove- List of user-defined style Global variable defined in w2x:xed/remove-
styles.preserved-
classes names separated by styles.xed.
space characters. The CSS classes used to apply the user-defined
Default: “” (empty list). styles specified in this list will not be removed by
w2x:xed/removes-styles.xed.
Note that specifying both parameters
prune.preserve and remove-
styles.preserved-classes is currently the
only way to keep in the generated semantic
XHTML empty paragraphs having a given MS-
Word style. For example, specifying -p
prune.preserve p-PlaceHolder and -p
remove-styles.preserved-classes p-
PlaceHolder may be used to keep in the
semantic XHTML output all empty paragraphs
having the p-PlaceHolder style.
sections.max-level An integer greater or Global variable defined in
equal to 1. w2x:xed/sections.xed.
Default: -1. No Wrap sequences of elements starting with a hN
maximum level. element (that is, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) into <div
class=”role-sectionN> elements.
This parameter specifies the maximum level of
nesting for such sections.

Simple conversion specifications

Above parameter blocks.convert (respectively inlines.convert) provides the user of w2x with a
simple mean to convert p (respectively span) elements having certain paragraph (respectively
character) styles to XHTML elements possibly having attributes.

The syntax of a simple conversion specification is:

spec  simple_spec [ S ‘!’ S simple_spec ]*

simple_spec  style_spec S XHTML_element_qname [ S attribute_spec ]*
style_spec  style_name | style_pattern
style_pattern  ‘/’ pattern ’/’ | ‘^’ pattern ‘$’
attribute_spec  attribute_qname ‘=’ quoted_attribute_value
quoted_attribute_value  “’” value “’” | ‘”’ value ‘”’

49
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Note that when specifying a XHTML_element_qname, you must restrict yourself to XHTML 1.0
Transitional elements. Specifying for example, XHTML 5.0 elements such as mark, aside, section, etc,
will not give you the results you’ll expect.

Examples: stock styled span conversions used by w2x:xed/inlines.xed:

/Emphasis$/ em !
c-Strong strong !
c-BookTitle cite !
/((IntenseReference)|(SubtleReference)|(QuoteChar))$/ em !
/((itleChar)|(Heading\d+Char))$/ strong

Custom styled span conversions used to process this manual:

c-Code code

Stock styled paragraph conversions used by w2x:xed/blocks.xed:

/Quote$/ p g:id='blockquote' g:container='blockquote'

Custom styled paragraph conversions used to process this manual:

p-Term dt g:id="dl" g:container="dl" !

p-Definition dd g:id="dl" g:container="dl" !
p-ProgramListing span g:id="pre" g:container="pre"

Automatic grouping of the XHTML elements which are the results of the styled paragraph conversions

In the above examples, attributes having names prefixed with “g:” are in the “urn:x-
mlmind:namespace:group” namespace. These attributes are called grouping attributes. Examples:
g:id, g:container.

When parameter blocks.convert is used to create XHTML elements having grouping attributes,
command group() is automatically invoked at the end of all the styled paragraph conversions. To make
it simple, this command groups consecutive XHTML elements having the same g:id attribute into a
common parent element. The parent element is specified by attribute g:container.

In the above examples,

 Consecutive p elements having grouping attributes g:id='blockquote' and

g:container='blockquote' are grouped into a common blockquote parent element.
 Consecutive dt and dt elements having grouping attributes g:id="dl" and g:container="dl
are grouped into a common dl parent element.
 Consecutive span elements having grouping attributes g:id="pre" and g:container="pre"
are grouped into a common pre parent element.

50
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

8.4 EPUB step

Splits input XHTML document, whether styled or semantic, into several pages and packages these pages
as an EPUB 2 book. The result of the this step is the file containing the EPUB book.

No tab expansion for EPUB 2

By default, when generating styled HTML (that is, XHTML+CSS), some JavaScript™ code
(w2x_install_dir/xed/expand-tabs.js) is added to the output file. This code computes
and gives a width to all <span class=”role-tab> </span>. This allows to decently emulate
tab stops in any modern Web browser. More information in About tab stops.

However, this cannot work in the case of the EPUB 2 output format because scripting is
disabled in the styled HTML pages comprising an EPUB book.

Same parameters as the Split step, plus the following EPUB specific parameters (for clarity, the “epub.”
parameter name prefix is omitted here):

Name Value Description

cover-image-url-or- An absolute URL or a Specifies an image file which is to be used as the
file
filename. A relative cover page of the EPUB book. This image must be
filename is relative to a PNG or JPEG image. Its size must not exceed
the current working 1000x1000 pixels.
directory.
Default: none (no cover
page).
default-lang A language code Main language of the EPUB book. This parameter
conforming RFC 3066. is used only when this language cannot be
Examples: de, fr-CA. determined by examining the input styled XHTML
Default value: en. document.
identifier String. A globally unique identifier for the generated
Default: dynamically EPUB book (typically the permanent URL of the
generated UUID URN. EPUB book).
omit-toc-root “yes” | “no” By default, the TOC generated for an EPUB
Default: “no”. document has a single “root”. This single root
always points to the page containing the title,
subtitle, author, etc, of the document. Setting
this parameter to “yes” prevents the generated
TOC from having such single root.
out-file A file path. Specifies the path of the EPUB book. A relative
No default (required). file path is relative to the current working
directory.

8.5 Load step

Loads an input XML file. The result of this step is loaded XML document.

51
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

This step is mainly useful to test XED scripts. Example:

w2x –l –e my_script.xed –s in.xhtml out.xhtml

Note that if loaded file starts with a <!DOCTYPE> pointing to a DTD, then a document loader created by
this step will not attempt to load this DTD. The document loader will behave as if the <!DOCTYPE> was
absent.

No parameters.

8.6 Save step

Saves input XHTML document to disk. The result of the this step is the save file.

Parameters (for clarity, the “save.” parameter name prefix is omitted here):

Name Value Description

encoding A valid character Specifies the character encoding of the save file.
encoding (e.g. UTF-8,
Windows-1252).
Default: “UTF-8”.
indent A boolean: true (same Specifies whether the save file should be
as: yes | on | 1) | false indented.
(same as: no | off | 0).
Default: false.
Note:

Do not specify indent=”true” in

production.

The XML indentation created this way

being very simple, this may add
whitespace inside elements where
space characters are significant.

out-file A file path. Specifies the path of the save file. A relative file
No default (required). path is relative to the current working directory.

8.7 Split step

Splits input XHTML document, whether styled or semantic, into several pages and saves these pages to
disk.

This step also generates a frameset and a table of contents used as the left frame of the frameset.
While an obsolete HTML feature, a frameset makes it easy browsing the generated pages. Moreover the
table of contents used as the left frame is a convenient way to programmatically list all the generated
pages.

52
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

The result of the this step is the file containing the frameset.

For clarity, the “split.” parameter name prefix is omitted here.

However when you’ll pass any of the following parameters to w2x, please do not forget this
prefix. Example: -p split.split-before-level 8.

Parameters:

Name Value Description

allow-lonely- A boolean: true (same If specified as true, allow a page to contain just a
heading
as: yes | on | 1) | false heading and nothing else.
(same as: no | off | 0).
Default: false.
indent A boolean: true (same Specifies whether the save files should be
as: yes | on | 1) | false indented.
(same as: no | off | 0).
Default: false.
Note:

Do not specify indent=”true” in

production.

The XML indentation created this way

being very simple, this may add
whitespace inside elements where
space characters are significant.

out-file A file path. Specifies the path of the file containing the
No default (required). frameset. A relative file path is relative to the
current working directory.
This step always generates several files, all in the
same directory as file out-file.
This output directory is created on the fly if
needed too. However, the output directory, if it
already exists, is not automatically made empty.
 The file specified by out-file contains
the frameset. Let’s suppose out-file is
temp\foo.html.
 The table of contents of the frameset, its
left frame, is created in temp\foo-
TOC.html.
 Unless parameter use-id-as-filename
has been specified as true, the styled
HTML pages are created in temp\foo-

53
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

0.html, temp\foo-1.html, temp\foo-
2.html, …, temp\foo-N.html.
split-before-level Outline level between In order to generate multi-page styled HTML, that
0 (e.g. style “Heading is, frameset, Web Help, EPUB, we need to
1”) and 8 (e.g. style automatically split the input XHTML document
“Heading 9”). into pages.
Default: 0 (split at A new page is created each time a paragraph
“Heading 1”). having an outline level less than or equal to
specified split-before-level parameter is
found in the source.
An outline level is an integer between 0 (e.g. style
“Heading 1”) and 8 (e.g. style “Heading 9”).
The default value of parameter split-before-
level is 0, which means: for each “Heading 1”,
create a new page starting with this “Heading 1”.
See also Important tip.

use-id-as-filename A boolean: true (same By default, the save files of the generated pages
as: yes | on | 1) | false have the same basename as out-file, except
(same as: no | off | 0). that a number is appended to this basename.
Default: false. Example: out-file is temp\foo.html; the save
files of the generated pages are thus: temp\foo-
0.html, temp\foo-1.html, temp\foo-2.html, …,
temp\foo-N.html.
In a MS-Word document, a heading is often given
a bookmark. The Convert step translates this
bookmark to an ID. When use-id-as-filename
is specified as true, the save file of a page is
given a basename corresponding to the ID of the
heading used to start this page. When this
heading ID is missing, the Split step fallbacks to
the default behavior.

8.8 Transform step

Transforms input XML document or file using an XSLT 1.0 stylesheet. The result of the this step is the
save file containing the transformed document.

Unlike the load step, if the input XML file starts with a <!DOCTYPE> pointing to a DTD, then the
document loader created by a Transform step will silently skip this DTD.

For clarity, the “transform.” or “transform2.” parameter name prefix is omitted here.

54
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

However when you’ll pass any of the following parameters to w2x, please do not forget this
prefix. Example: -p transform.cals-tables yes.

Parameters:

Name Value Description

xslt-url-or-file An absolute URL or the Specifies which XSLT 1.0 stylesheet should be
path of an existing file. used to transform the input XML document. A
No default (required). relative file path is relative to the current working
directory.
out-file A file path. Specifies the path of the save file. A relative file
No default (required). path is relative to the current working directory.

Any other parameter is passed to the XSLT stylesheet as an XSLT stylesheet parameter. Which XSLT
stylesheet parameters are supported depend on the XSLT stylesheet being used.

Table 4 Parameters of w2x:xslt/docbook.xslt, docbook5.xslt, which are used to convert input

XHTML document to DocBook v4 or v5

Name Value Description

docbook-version DocBook version (e.g. Specifies the version of DocBook.
“4.5” or “5.0”). This number is used to specify which <!DOCTYPE>
Default: “4.5” for to add to the generate file or, in the case of
docbook.xslt, “5.0” DocBook 5, the value of the version attribute of
for docbook5.xslt. the root element of the generated file.
Please remember that versions of DocBook older
than “4.3” do not support HTML tables. (HTML
tables, not CALS tables, are generated by default. See
below.)
cals-tables “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, generate CALS tables.
Default: “no”. If “no”, generate HTML tables.
Note that cals-table=”yes” requires specifying
Convert step parameter set-column-
number=”yes”.
hierarchy-name “book” | “article” | Specifies the root element name and type of
“part” | “chapter” | sections of the DocBook document to be
“appendix” | generated.
“section” | “book-
sect1” | “article-
sect1” | “part-sect1”
| “chapter-sect1” |
“appendix-sect1” |
“sect1” | “sect2” |
“sect3” | “sect4” |
“sect5” .
Default: “book”.

55
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

media-alt “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, convert the alt attribute of XHTML
Default: “no”. element img to DocBook alt element.
If “no”, ignore the alt attribute of XHTML
element img.
pre-element-name An element local name. Specifies to which DocBook element, an HTML
Default: pre element is to be converted.
“literallayout”.

Table 5 Parameters of w2x:xslt/topic.xslt, which is used to convert input XHTML document to a

DITA topic

Name Value Description

root-topic-id An XML ID. Specifies the ID of the root topic.
Default: automatically
generated ID.
single-topic “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, convert input <div class=”role-
Default: “no”. sectionN”> to (non-nested) DITA section
elements.
If “no”, convert input <div class=”role-
sectionN”> to nested topics.
topic-type “topic” |“concept” | Specifies the type of topics to be created by the
“generalTask” | XSLT stylesheet.
“task” (same as:
“strictTask” ) |
“reference”.
Default: “topic”.
pre-element-name An element local name. Specifies to which DITA element, an HTML pre
Default: “pre”. element is to be converted.
shortdesc-class- A class name. Default: Specifies the class name of the XHTML <p> which
name
“”. Examples: p- acts as a short description of the section.
Shortdesc, p- When this parameter is not specified (or is specified
Abstract. as the empty string which is its default value), the
following style mapping, created by the w2x-app
wizard:
-p edit.blocks.convert¬
"p-Shortdesc p class='p-Shortdesc'"
...
<xsl:template
match="h:p[@class='p-Shortdesc']">
<shortdesc>
<xsl:call-template
name="processCommonAttributes"/>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</shortdesc>
</xsl:template>
causes DITA <shortdesc> elements to generated
inside topic bodies, which is invalid.
After specifying

56
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

-p transform.shortdesc-class-name¬
p-Shortdesc
this issue is fixed and DITA <shortdesc>
elements are generated before topic bodies.

Table 6 Parameters of w2x:xslt/xhtml_strict.xslt, xhtml_loose.xslt, xhtml1_1.xslt,

xhtml5.xslt, which are used to convert input XHTML 1.0 Transitional document to XHTML having a
different version

Name Value Description

discard-index-terms “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, discard <span class=”role-index-
Default: “yes”. term”> elements.
If “no”, keep <span class=”role-index-
term”> elements.
footnote-number- A valid XSLT number When parameter number-footnotes is “yes”,
format
format (value of attribute specifies the format of the numeric label used for
format of element footnotes and footnote callouts.
xsl:number).
Default: “[1]”.
generate-xref-text “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, add hyperlink text to a elements which
Default: “yes”. are cross-references.
If “no”, keep empty a elements which are cross-
references.
number-footnotes “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, add a numeric label to footnotes and
Default: “yes”. footnote callouts.
If “no”, do not add a numeric label to footnotes
and footnote callouts.
style-with-class “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, add a class attribute to some elements
Default: “no”. to allow using a CSS stylesheet to style them. For
example: convert <center> to <div
class=”center”>.
If “no”, add a direct style to some elements to
style them. For example: convert <center> to
<div style=”text-align:center;”>.

Table 7 Parameters of w2x:xslt/map.xslt, bookmap.xslt, which are used to convert input DITA
topic file to a map or bookmap

Name Value Description

add-index “yes” | “no”. bookmap.xslt only.
Default: “yes”. Ignored if the input topic document does not
contain any index term.
If “yes”, add an indexlist element to the back
matter of the bookmap .
If “no”, do not add an indexlist element to the
back matter of the bookmap.

57
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Name Value Description

add-toc “yes” | “no”. bookmap.xslt only.
Default: “yes”. If “yes”, add a toc element to the front matter
of the bookmap.
If “no”, do not add a toc element to the front
matter of the bookmap.
output-path An absolute or relative Specifies the URI of the directory which is to
“file:” URI. contain all generated files. A relative URI is
No default (required). relative to the current working directory.
section-depth “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, “5”, Specifies the topicref structure of the DITA map
“6”, “7”, “8”, “9”. to be generated.
Default: “1”. Example 1: a bookmap generated using
section-depth=”1” only contains chapter
topicrefs.
Example 2: a bookmap generated using
section-depth=”2” contains chapter
topicrefs, themselves possibly containing plain
topicrefs (acting as sections).
Example 3: a bookmap generated using
section-depth=”3” contains chapter
topicrefs, themselves possibly containing plain
topicrefs (acting as sections), themselves
possibly containing other plain topicrefs (acting
as subsections).
topic-path An absolute or relative Specifies the URI of the subdirectory directory
“file:” URI. which is to contain all generated topic files. A
No default: generate relative URI is relative to output-path.
topic files in output-
path.
topic-type “topic” | “concept” | Specifies the type of topics to be created by the
“generalTask” | topic.xslt XSLT stylesheet. See above.
“task” (same as: This parameter is used to make a difference
“strictTask” ) | between a strict task and a general task. In all
“reference”. other cases, this parameter may be omitted.
No default. See
description.

8.9 Web Help step

Splits input XHTML document, whether styled or semantic, into several pages and compiles these pages
into a Web Help. The Web Help compiler used to do this is free, open source, XMLmind Web Help
Compiler.

This step always generates UTF-8 encoded, “.html” files, no matter the parameters specifying other
values.

58
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Same parameters as the Split step, plus the following Web Help specific parameters (for clarity, the
“webhelp.” parameter name prefix is omitted here):

Name Value Description

add-index “yes” | “no”. If “yes”, automatically create an index.html
Default: “yes”. file, if an index.html file does not already exist.
omit-toc-root “yes” | “no” By default, the TOC generated for a Web Help
Default: “no”. document has a single “root”. This single root
always points to the page containing the title,
subtitle, author, etc, of the document. Setting
this parameter to “yes” prevents the generated
TOC from having such single root.
wh-* (examples: wh- String. All parameters starting with “wh-“ are passed as
local-jquery, wh- No default. is to XMLmind Web Help Compiler.
jquery-theme, wh- Example: -p webhelp.wh-collapse-toc yes.
index-numbers) These parameters are all documented in
XMLmind Web Help Compiler, Parameters.

59
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

9 Embedding w2x in a Java™ application

Embedding w2x in a Java™ application is as simple as:

1. Create an instance of class Processor.

2. Configure it by passing an array of option strings identical to those of the w2x command line
utility to method Processor.configure or (low-level) by directly adding conversion steps and
parameters to Processor.stepList and Processor.parameterMap.
3. Invoke the configured processor to convert specified input file to specified output file. This is
done invoking high-level method Processor.process or low-level method
Processor.executeSteps.

About thread-safety

An instance of Processor cannot be shared by different threads.

It’s strongly recommend not to reuse an instance of Processor. That is, please create one
instance of Processor per conversion.

The reference manual (generated using javadoc) of the Java API of w2x is found in XMLmind Word To XML
Java™ API.

High-level example w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/Embed1.java:

Processor processor = new Processor();

int l = processor.configure(args);

File inFile = null;

File outFile = null;
if (l+2 == args.length) {
inFile = new File(args[l]);
outFile = new File(args[l+1]);
} else {
System.exit(1);
}

processor.process(inFile, outFile, /*progress monitor*/ null);

 Compile Embed1.java by executing “ant”10 in w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/.

 Run “ant tembed1” in w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/. This creates
w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/tembed1.dita.

10
Apache Ant is a command-line utility for automating software build processes. By default, ant uses an XML file,
called build.xml to describe the build process and its dependencies. In the case of the two above code samples,
this file is w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/build.xml.

60
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Lower-level example w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/Embed2.java:

Processor processor = new Processor();

ConvertStep convertStep = new ConvertStep("convert");

processor.stepList.add(convertStep);

EditStep editStep = new EditStep("edit");

processor.stepList.add(editStep);

processor.parameterMap.put("edit.xed-url-or-file",
"w2x:xed/main-styled.xed");

SaveStep saveStep = new SaveStep("save");

processor.stepList.add(saveStep);

processor.parameterMap.put("save.indent", "yes");

processor.process(inFile, outFile, /*progress monitor*/ null);

 Compile Embed2.java by executing “ant” in w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/.

 Run “ant tembed2” in w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/. This creates
w2x_install_dir/doc/manual/embed/tembed2.xhtml.

9.1 Extension points

9.1.1 Custom conversion step
The stock conversion steps are: com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.ConvertStep, DeleteFilesStep,
EditStep, LoadStep, SaveStep, TransformStep.

A custom conversion step may be implemented by deriving abstract class

com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.ProcessStep. Such task poses no technical problems whatsoever. Suffice
for that to implement a single method: ProcessStep.process.

See reference of class com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.Processor.

9.1.2 Custom image converters

Image converters are used to convert images having a format not supported by Web browsers (TIFF,
WMF, EMF, etc) to a format supported by Web browsers (SVG, PNG, JPEG).

Image converters are specified by interface com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ImageConverterFactory.

XMLmind Word To XML ships with 4 classes implementing this interface:

com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ImageConverterFactoryImpl
Image converter factory used to convert TIFF images to PNG or JPEG.

com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.wmf_converter.WMFConverterFactory
Image converter factory used to convert WMF graphics to SVG.

61
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.emf2png.EMF2PNG
This image converter factory is available only on Windows. It leverages Windows own GDI+ to
convert EMF (in fact, Windows metafiles of any kind, including WMF) to PNG.

This is not that great because, unlike above WMFConverterFactory which converts WMF (Windows
vector graphics format) to SVG (standard vector graphics format), EMF2PNG converts a vector graphics format
to a raster image format. However, having EMF2PNG is better than nothing at all.

EMF2PNG has one parameter called resolution. Its value is a real number expressed in Dot Per Inch
(DPI). The default value of parameter resolution is 0.0 (see below).

The resolution parameter specifies the resolution of the output PNG file. 0 means: same
resolution as the one found input EMF/WMF file; a positive number means: use this value to
override the resolution found in the input EMF/WMF file; a negative number means: use specified
absolute value but only if this absolute value is greater than the resolution found in the input
EMF/WMF file.

com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ExternalImageConverter
This image converter factory executes an external program to perform the conversion. See 9.1.2.1
below.

If you want w2x to support more image formats, you’ll have to create your own
ImageConverterFactory and register it with w2x using method ImageConverterFactories.register.

About thread-safety

A single instance of a class implementing ImageConverterFactory is used by all instances of

com.xmlmind.w2x.processor.Processor. This implies that an implementation of
ImageConverterFactory must be thread-safe.

See reference of package com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ImageConverterFactories.

9.1.2.1 Specifying an external image converter

Examples of W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS specifications (see 9.1.2.2 below):

 Convert EMF to SVG using OpenOffice/LibreOffice:

.emf.svg soffice --headless --convert-to svg -–outdir %~po %i

 Convert EMF/WMF to PNG using ImageMagick:

.emf.png.wmf.png magick convert -density 288 "%I" -scale 25% "%O"

The command executed by an external image converter may contain the following variables:

62
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Variable Definition
%I Absolute path of the input image file.
%O Absolute path of the output image file.
%i Same as %I but quoted, that is, equivalent to “%I”.
%o Same as %O but quoted, that is, equivalent to “%O”.
%S File separator: “\” on Windows, “/” on Mac/Linux.

The following modifiers may be applied to the %I, %O, %i, %o variables:

Modifier Definition
~p Absolute path of the parent directory of the file. For example, if %I is
“C:\temp\doc_files\logo.wmf”, then %~pI is “C:\temp\doc_files”.
~n Basename of the file. For example, if %I is “C:\temp\doc_files\logo.wmf”,
then %~nI is “logo.wmf”.
~r Basename of the file without any extension. For example, if %I is
“C:\temp\doc_files\logo.wmf”, then %~rI is “logo”.
~e Extension of the file. For example, if %I is “C:\temp\doc_files\logo.wmf”,
then %~eI is “wmf”.

Also note that “%%” may be used to escape character “%”. More generally, just like in an URL, an %HH UTF-
8 sequence may be used to escape any character. Example: “%3B” is “;” (semi colon), “%C3%A9” is “é”
(“e” with acute accent).

9.1.2.2 Controlling how image files found in the input DOCX file are converted to
standard formats
Conversion of images found in the DOCX file (TIFF, WMF, EMF, etc) to standard formats (SVG, PNG,
JPEG) may be controlled using environment variable (or Java™ property) W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS.

The default value of this variable is (all specifications on a single line):

.wmf.svg java:com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.wmf_converter.WMFConverterFactory;
.tiff.png java:com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ImageConverterFactoryImpl

On Windows, the default value of W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS is (all specifications on a single line):

.wmf.svg java:com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.wmf_converter.WMFConverterFactory;
.emf.png.wmf.png java:com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.emf2png.EMF2PNG resolution 0;
.tiff.png java:com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ImageConverterFactoryImpl

The syntax of W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS is:

specifications -> “-” | specification_list

specification_list -> specification [ “;” specification ]+

specification -> “+” | image_conversion

image_conversion -> extensions S ( java_image_conversion | external_image_conversion )

63
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

extensions -> [ “.” input_file_extension “.” output_file_extension ]+

java_image_conversion -> “java:” fully_qualified_java_class_name parameters

parameters -> [ S parameter_name S possibly_quoted_parameter_value ]*

external_image_conversion -> command_line

About this syntax:

 “-” means: no specifications; hence no image conversions at all.

 “+” means: insert default value of W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS at this point. Example:

set W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS=.emf.png magick convert %i %o;+

where default value of W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS is (on Windows):

.wmf.svg java:com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.wmf_converter.WMFConverterFactory;
.emf.png.wmf.png java:com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.emf2png.EMF2PNG resolution 0;
.tiff.png java:com.xmlmind.w2x.docx.image.ImageConverterFactoryImpl

 Note that the image conversion specifications are considered in the order of their declarations
in variable W2X_IMAGE_CONVERSIONS. In the case of the above example, it’s custom “magick
convert %i %o” which is used to convert EMF to PNG and not stock
“java:com.xmlmind.w2x_ext.emf2png.EMF2PNG resolution 0”.

64
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

10 Limitations and implementation specificities

The Convert step does not support the following MS-Word features.

By “does not support”, we mean that w2x will not generate something useful corresponding to such
features. We don’t mean that using such features in a DOCX file would cause w2x to fail or to generate
invalid XML documents.

 Right to left scripts.

 Enclose characters.
 Asian layout.
 Cover Page. Blank Page.
 Text wrapping of tables and pictures other than the simplest one.
 Picture formats other than GIF, PNG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF and WMF are not supported. EMF
pictures are supported only on Windows.
 Clip Art. Shapes. SmartArt. Chart.
 Header. Footer. Page Number.
 Japanese Greetings. Text Box. WordArt. Drop Cap.
 Object.
 All features related to Page Layout except (to a minimal extent) page and column breaks and
end of sections.
 All features related to Mailings.
 All features related to Spelling & Grammar, except of course the various languages used in the
document (i.e. lang attribute).
 Comments.
 All features related to Change Tracking, (document) Compare, (document) Protect.
 Macros.
 Controls.

The Convert step generates XHTML+CSS documents having the following specificities:

 Tab stops are converted to <span class=”role-tab> </span>. See About tab stops.
 MS-Word document properties having no standard meta equivalent are given names starting
with “ms-”. Example:

<meta content="Hussein Shafie" name="ms-cp-lastModifiedBy" />

 MS-Word “styles” having no CSS equivalent are a given a “-ms-” prefix. Example:

.p-Heading3 {
-ms-outlineLvl: 2;
color: #4F81BD;
font-family: Cambria;
...

65
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

 Page breaks are translated to <?break-page?>. Column breaks are translated to <?break-
column?>. End of sections are signaled by <?end-of-section?>.
 WMF pictures are converted to SVG.
−𝑏±√𝑏2 −4𝑎𝑐
 OpenXML math, for example 𝑥 = 2𝑎
, is converted to MathML.
Conversion from OpenXML math to MathML is implemented by an XSLT 1.0 stylesheet called
omml2mml.xsl coming from open source project XSL stylesheets for TEI XML. If you think you
have access to a better XSLT stylesheet than open source omml2mml.xsl, then you may use it by
specifying environment variable (or Java™ system property) W2X_MATH_CONVERTER_XSLT. Example:

set W2X_MATH_CONVERTER_XSLT=C:\Users\john\My better omml2mml.xsl

 All simple and most complex fields are converted to a <?field code?> having a <span
class="role-field"> parent. Example:

<span class="role-field">
<?field DATE \@ "MMMM d, yyyy" \* MERGEFORMAT ?>
August 27, 2014
</span>

 Smart tags are enclosed between <?begin-smartTag tag?> and <?end-smartTag tag?>.
Example:

<?begin-smartTag {urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags}PersonName#0?>
<?begin-smartTag {urn:schemas:contacts}GivenName#1?>
Bill
<?end-smartTag {urn:schemas:contacts}GivenName#1?>

<?begin-smartTag {urn:schemas:contacts}Sn#2?>
Gates
<?end-smartTag {urn:schemas:contacts}Sn#2?>
<?end-smartTag {urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags}PersonName#0?>

 Controls are enclosed between <?begin-sdt control_id?> and <?end-sdt control_id?>.

Example:

<?begin-sdt comboBox#6?>

<td class="tc-TableGrid--bb tc-TableGrid"

style="padding-bottom: 7.2pt; padding-left: 7.2pt;
padding-right: 7.2pt; padding-top: 7.2pt;">
<p class="tp-TableGrid p-Normal" lang="fr-FR">
<span class="c-PlaceholderText">Choose an item.</span>
</p>
</td>

<?end-sdt comboBox#6?>

66
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

 The language of DOCX files written in an East Asian language is not correctly detected.
Unfortunately, this will always be the case because w2x never examines the characters actually
contained in a text span having <w:lang w:eastAsia="ja-JP" w:val="en-US"/> to determine
whether this text span is written in ja-JP or is written in en-US or is written is a mix of both
languages.
However, a partial workaround for this limitation is to specify for example –p convert.set-
lang ja-JP or –p convert.default-lang ja-JP. When parameter convert.set-lang or
parameter convert.default-lang is set to a language code starting with ja, zh or ko, then it is
attribute w:lang/@w:eastAsia which is used to determine the language of a text span and not
attribute w:lang/@w:val.
Note that –p convert.default-lang ja-JP is just used as a hint to favor attribute
w:lang/@w:eastAsia over attribute wlang/@w:val. Given the way MS-Word sets these two
attributes, using parameter –p convert.default-lang ja-JP will not cause a vastly incorrect
detection of the language when converting a German DOCX file for example.
 w2x can generate DITA indexterm elements having index-sort-as children and DocBook
indexterm/primary, secondary, tertiary elements having sortas attributes. For this to
happen, the input DOCX file must contain XE (index entry) fields having \y "yomi" (first phonetic
character for sorting indexes) field arguments.
Unlike MS-Word which considers \y "yomi" only for East Asian languages, w2x uses this XE field
argument to sort the index entries whatever the language of the document. English examples:
{XE "<span>" \y "span"}, {XE "Operation:+" \y ":Addition"}.

10.1 About tab stops

Tab stops are converted to <span class=”role-tab> </span>. These span elements are processed as
follows:

 When generating styled HTML (that is, XHTML+CSS), some JavaScript™ code
(w2x_install_dir/xed/expand-tabs.js) is added to the output file. This code computes and gives
a width to all <span class=”role-tab> </span>. This allows to decently emulate tab stops in any
modern Web browser.
If you don't want this code to be added to the output file, pass option -p edit.do.expand-tabs ""
to w2x.
 When generating semantic XHTML and all the other semantic XML formats (DocBook, DITA, etc), it's
possible to convert consecutive paragraphs containing text runs aligned on tab stops to a borderless
table.
However because, in the general case, it's not possible to emulate tab stops using tables, this XED
script is disabled by default. If you really want to emulate tab stops using tables, pass option -
p edit.convert-tabs.to-table yes to w2x.

67
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

Index

EPUB, output format .................................16, 17, 40, 51, 54

A
About East Asian languages ........................................ 39, 40 F
add-index, parameter .......................................................57
add-toc, parameter ...........................................................58 -f, option........................................................................... 35
allow-lonely-heading, parameter .....................................53 files, parameter ................................................................ 41
finish-styles.css-uri, parameter ........................................ 42
finish-styles.mathjax, parameter...................................... 43
B
finish-styles.mathjax-url, parameter ................................ 43
before-save.allow-flow, parameter ..................................45 footnote-number-format, parameter .............................. 57
biblio.style-names, parameter ..........................................45 frameset, output format ...................................... 17, 52, 54
blocks.convert, parameter ................................................45 frameset, output format .................................................. 16
blocks.convert-to-pre, parameter ....................................45
G
C
generate-xref-text, parameter ......................................... 57
-c, option......................................................... 19, 33, 34, 37
cals-tables, parameter ......................................................55 H
captions.style-names, parameter .....................................46
charset, parameter ..................................................... 37, 38 headings.convert, parameter ........................................... 46
CJK...................................... See About East Asian languages hierarchy-name, parameter ............................................. 55
Convert, step ....................................................................38
converted-image-extensions, parameter .........................38 I
convert-tabs.to-table, parameter .....................................46
convert-tabs.unwrap-paragraphs, parameter ..................46 identifier, parameter ........................................................ 51
cover-image-url-or-file, parameter ...................................51 ids.generate-section-ids, parameter ................................ 47
create-mathml-object, parameter ....................................38 ids.section-id-max-length, parameter .............................. 47
indent, parameter ...................................................... 52, 53
inlines.b-element, parameter........................................... 47
D inlines.big-element, parameter ........................................ 47
default-lang, parameter ........................................ 39, 51, 67 inlines.convert, parameter ............................................... 48
Delete files, step ...............................................................41 inlines.generate-big-small, parameter ............................. 48
discard-index-terms, parameter .......................................57 inlines.i-element, parameter ............................................ 47
DITA bookmap, output format..........................................17 inlines.s-element, parameter ........................................... 47
DITA map, output format..................................................17 inlines.small-element, parameter .................................... 47
DITA topic, output format .................................................16 inlines.sub-element, parameter ....................................... 47
DocBook 4, output format ................................................16 inlines.sup-element, parameter ....................................... 47
DocBook 5, output format ................................................16 inlines.tt-element, parameter .......................................... 47
docbook-version, parameter ............................................55 inlines.u-element, parameter........................................... 47

E L
-e, option ........................................................ 20, 33, 35, 37 -l, option ........................................................................... 34
-e2, option ........................................................................35 -liststeps, option ......................................................... 20, 35
Edit, step ...........................................................................41 Load, step ......................................................................... 51
encoding, parameter ........................................................52 lower-case-resource-names, parameter .......................... 40

68
 XMLmind Word To XML Manual

M single-topic, parameter .................................................... 56

split-before-level, parameter ..................................... 17, 54
MathML ................................................................ 38, 43, 66 -step, option ............................................................... 20, 35
MathJax........................................................................43 style-with-class, parameter .............................................. 57
media-alt, parameter ........................................................56
metas.keep, parameter ....................................................48 T
N -t, option .............................................................. 20, 33, 35
-t2, option ........................................................................ 35
number-footnotes, parameter .........................................57 tab stops ............................................................... 46, 65, 67
title.keep-title, parameter ................................................ 43
O title.subtitle-container, parameter .................................. 44
title.subtitle-style-names, parameter .............................. 44
-o, option .............................................................. 16, 17, 34 title.title-container, parameter ........................................ 44
omit-toc-root, parameter ........................................... 51, 59 title.title-style-names, parameter .................................... 44
out-file, parameter ................................... 37, 51, 52, 53, 55 topic-path, parameter ...................................................... 58
Outline level .......................................................... 17, 18, 54 topic-type, parameter ................................................ 56, 58
output-path, parameter....................................................58 Transform, step ................................................................ 54

P U
-p, option .................................................................... 34, 37 us-id-as-filename, parameter ........................................... 54
-p, parameter .............................................................. 19, 20
pre-element-name, parameter .........................................56
V
prune.preserve, parameter ..............................................49
-pu, option ........................................................................34 -v, option .......................................................................... 35
-pu, parameter ..................................................................20 -version, option ................................................................ 35
version, parameter ........................................................... 41
R -vv, option .................................................................. 19, 35
-vvv, option ...................................................................... 35
remove-pis.except, parameter .........................................45
remove-styles.preserved-classes, parameter ...................49
W
resource-directory, parameter .........................................40
resource-prefix, parameter...............................................40 w2x-app ...................................................................... 6, 7, 9
root-topic-id, parameter ...................................................56 Web Help, output format ................................16, 17, 54, 58
webhelp.add-index, parameter ........................................ 59
S
X
-s, option ..................................................................... 35, 37
Save, step ..........................................................................52 xed-url-or-file, parameter ................................................ 42
section-depth, parameter .................................................58 XHTML 1.0 Strict, output format ...................................... 17
sections.max-level, parameter .........................................49 XHTML 1.0 Transitional, output format............................ 17
servlet ...............................................................................10 XHTML 1.1, output format ............................................... 17
curl ...............................................................................13 XHTML 5.0, output format ............................................... 17
multipart/form-data ....................................................13 XHTML, output format ............................................... 15, 17
POST .............................................................................13 xhtml-file, parameter ....................................................... 41
set-column-number, parameter .......................................40 XMLmind Web Help Compiler .................................... 58, 59
set-lang, parameter .................................................... 40, 67 XMLmind XML Editor add-on ............................................. 9
shortdesc-class-name, parameter ....................................56 xslt-url-or-file, parameter ................................................. 55

69