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ConvertingFromWord

Converting from Word to LyX

This page is meant to contain tips for how to import a Word file into LyX.

Converting with Wvware

If you've installed AbiWord, you can open up a Word document and save it as LaTeX, then use reLyX to convert it to LyX. However, this might be a Linux-only solution.

Probably a better way anyway, is to use wvWare directly. wvWare is what AbiWord uses to convert Word to AbiWord's format -- it doesn't do as good a job as OpenOffice, but it's passable. According to the wvWare homepage, The GnuWin32 project maintains a port for Windows.

Part of wvWare is a wrapper script, wvCleanLatex (there is also wvLatex, which is truer to the Word document, but reLyX probably won't like it). Then you can run reLyX on this LaTeX document. Mind you, LyX is a pretty smart cookie and can do this for you:

If LyX finds wvCleanLatex in the path when you reconfigure, expect to see an "Import --> Word..." in the File menu. (at least in version 1.3.5 of LyX ... for 1.3.3 you might need to run wvCleanLatex from a command line/shell.

Converting with Writer2LaTeX

Writer2LaTex (http://www.hj-gym.dk/~hj/writer2latex/index.html) is an OpenSource converter between OpenOffice (StarOffice) Writer and LaTeX. It is more powerful than WvCleanLaTeX and will convert for example footnotes, tables, etc.

If you start with a well formatted MsWord file with styles, you can get pretty good results :

1. Open the MsWord file in OpenOffice
2. Open one of the style sheets tailored for LaTeX standard classes that come with Writer2LaTex
3. Search and replace styles to use the LaTeX ones
4. Save in OpenOffice format
5. Convert with Writer2LaTex to LaTeX
6. Import the LaTeX file into LyX

-- Trent Apted - 2004-11-03

On Gentoo, you can install it using this ebuild.

MSWord