Problems Exporting to Word Doc

[timothylfox]

Hi,

I've always had trouble with exports to Word format. When I open in Word 2008 (Mac), formatting is pretty wacky: lots of things become bold, book titles are only half-italicized, Greek unicode words become a mixture of fonts, footnotes become a mixture of font sizes, etc., etc. I've got two short documents (one Mellel, one the Word export) to show you what I mean, but I don't see where to attach them to this post. It happens to everything I export. Is there a way to fix this, other than tediously going through the Word doc and fixing everything manually or with find-replace?

Thanks
Tim

[rpcameron]

This forum does not support attachments. You have to post the files somewhere else, then post the link here.

[timothylfox]

OK

Here's the Mellel version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing

Here's the Word export:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing

[Bulow]

There is something wrong with your style-sheet, but I cannot figure out what it is. I do this sort of thing very often - mostly from Word to Mellel, but also the other way - and it works splendidly. Your text, however, does exactly as you describe when I convert it to rtf (I do not have Word, but open it in NisusPro, same result). I have tried to impose one of my own style-sets on it, and then there is no problem with bold or italic &c. I have also tried to clean up your styles so that bold is variation B, Italics C, and bold Italics D, which appears to be what Mellel likes best, but no, it was no better when converted: the plain text between the two Italic passages still become bold Italic.
I have also tried to impose the default style set using 'regular' for your 'body' char-style, and then there is no problem. Try to change the style-set of your paper to the default style set and re-define your note-text to 10pt as you seem to want.
Here is the Mellel version of your text-sample, but imported into the default style set. It translates correctly into .doc
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/282 ... ion.mellel
Bülow

[rpcameron]

From the sounds of the discussion, it begs the question: how are you doing your styles? Do you use Mellel's styles and variations for all your styling, or do you have portions where you style ad-hoc? Mellel does best with styles, and ad-hoc styling should be avoided.

[timothylfox]

Thanks for your help! I've created my own character/paragraph styles for Titles and Subtitles, to fit the style guide of my field. I don't just go through and manually adjust everything, but have a style for each level of heading, and for the body, and for footnotes. What is the difference between doing this and doing A, B, C, D, etc.? (I've never used these.)

Thanks again!
Tim

[timothylfox]

So I tried switching the Mellel doc to "Default" style before exporting to Word (without making any other adjustments), and it's still giving me the same issues (mostly). I tried all three "matching" options (even after reading about these in the Mellel manual, I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between these). Exported to Word, they look like this:

Match by identical styles: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing
Match by style name: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing
Match by style attributes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing

Here are the Mellel docs that I switched to default style, and then exported as above:

Identical Styles: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing
Style Name: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing
Style Attributes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rlAi ... sp=sharing

[Bulow]

No I thought you did not use font variations, but I can see that you are using styles.
Using font variations is not a question of difference, it is just doing the styles more thoroughly: within the character style, say Body which gives you TNR12, you create 'font variations' i.e. bold, Italics and so on. So to change into Italics you press fn+F3 and you will see that your character style changes from Body (base) to Body (C). If you change to Italics using cmd+I (or on the palette) it may look the same, but your character style is now Body (base)+ This may give you trouble and be less stable if you want to change the font, or to export the text.
In the new samples you send font variations are still not applied, so there is no difference in the Word-export. Always assuming that we are on the right track.
You also mention problems with Greek, but there is no Greek in the sample you posted. I have some experience with Greek fonts and may be able to help if you post some problematic Greek.
Bülow

[timothylfox]

Dear Bülow,

Thank you VERY much for your help! I think I've got this sorted—I'm now adjusting character style by "variation" rather than pressing command-I (or whatever). Greek looks to be OK now too.

So it looks like I need to just change my style to the "default" set before exporting in order to not cause problems with Word.

But here's a question: when I change the "default" set for a single document, am I changing it for every single document also? Is there a way to create custom sets without causing the Word-export issues?

Thanks for taking my Mellel skills to the next level!!!

To Mellel infinity and beyond,
Tim

[Bulow]

Glad it helped. As for the default style, in your place, I should work my changes on a copy of the default-set, so as to keep the reference version.
Style-changes that you just save are kept for the document in question only. In Styles>edit style set you have the option to make a style-set global by clicking on the globe.