Word2TeX: Features

State-of-the-art user interface
Document formatting & structure translation
Equation translation
Figure translation
Table translation
REVTeX compatibility
HyperTeX support
Other

Restrictions while unregistered

State-of-the-art user interface

Word2TeX is very easy to use once installed. To translate your Word document to LaTeX you just need to File|Save As... with "TeX" saving format option:

Word2TeX is highly customizable software and your can access/change Word2TeX settings from the pull-down menu "Word2TeX" in Microsoft Word:

For your convenience all Word2TeX settings/parameters are represented as "Property Sheet" dialog with settings arranged by categories:

By default, this dialog will pop-up everytime you will do File|Save As..., but you can choose this dialog to pop-up only when you hold down left CTRL-key:

Document formatting & structure translation

Produces LaTeX2e, LaTeX2.09, AMS-LaTeX2e, AMS-LaTeX documents

Just choose appropriate LaTeX type (LaTeX2e is used by default) and check AMS option if you need American Mathematical Society extensions.

In simple words document preamble is a set of commands before \begin{document} instruction. Required LaTeX packages are included here and also everything that applies to whole document (paper size, for example). Output document preamble can be customized. Moreover, you can use special keywords:
(%IfRequired and %IfNotRequired) which provide you with opportunity to include required packages automatically.

Detects paragraphs with no indentation

Just enable this option:

and Word2TeX will always translate paragraphs that start with lowercase letter as paragraphs with no indentation (\noindent command will precede this paragraph). Useful for documents that contain display equations.

Translates multicolumn formatting

Word2TeX converts multicolumn formatting in documents using standard LaTeX package {multicol}, by Frank Mittelbach, which allows to create up to 10 columns.

Translates cross-referencing

Word2TeX translates cross-referencing inside converted document (references to section headings, endnotes, equations, hyperlinks).

Translates footnotes

Usual footnotes are translated as footnotes, endnotes (which are sub-type of footnotes in Word) are handled in different manner (see below).

Translates endnotes (bibliography)

Endnotes are translated as bibliography. References to endnotes are translated to \cite LaTeX commands.
Even references like "[1]-[4]" will expand to \cite{item1,item2,item3,item4} as required by some publishers (REVTeX for instance). You can redefine LaTeX environment name that will be used for endnotes:

Word2TeX does its best to give nice names to bibliography items, in most cases such names will be author_last_name:year_of_publishing.

Translates index

Word2TeX translates index entries, if they were specified in Word document.

Customizable translation of paragraph styles

Word2TeX maps Word's Heading1, Heading2, Heading3 and Heading4 paragraph styles to user-defineable LaTeX environments:

Default values shown above are applicable to {article} LaTeX class.

Also you can map any Word's style to some LaTeX environment or command, just turn on

under ExStyles Word2TeX settings tab and define any number of translation rules for styles:

This means that Word's paragraph with style abstract will be translated to:

\begin{abstract}
...paragraph body here...
\end{abstract}

If Prefix string ends with '{' Word2TeX will not break line before and after paragraph body.

Customizable translation of character attributes

You can redefine LaTeX translation for any character attribute, {ulem} package is required for translation of some attributes (waved underline,etc.).

Text and equation foreground/background colour translation

Word2TeX will not translate colours in text/equations if following option is turned off (by default it is turned off):

Translates font family

Some fonts can be translated to their LaTeX equivalents if following option is turned on:

Translates font sizes

Word2TeX will translate font sizes to \Huge,\large,etc., if following option is turned on:

Customizable translation of tabulation marks

There's no equivalent in LaTeX for Word's tabulation marks created with TAB key, but you can choose to convert them to non-existing \tab command which you can define in document preamble.

Unicode 3.0-based character translation

Word2TeX has built-in Unicode database which includes MTCode (MathType's superset of Unicode). Both text-mode and math-mode translations are defined there. Characters are sorted by Unicode/MTCode range, for your convenience:

You can easily navigate in this table, redefine character translations and create translations for undefined characters:

It is always good to remember that there's

button, which will return all character translation rules to their default values.

Translates MBCS characters (Asian Word)

Word2TeX will convert MBCS characters to Unicode and will try to find translation in character translation table, but if there's no translation for this character Word2TeX will output MBCS representation of that character as is.

Supports ANSI and OEM encodings for output documents

Suppression of explicit numeric tags

Word2TeX will suppress all automatic bulleting/numbering tags represented as plain text if you'll turn on following option:

Programmable document title creation

Actually title in Word2TeX's terms is something like another document preamble which should be emitted right after \begin{document}.

There's one more trick here, in this title you can use following keywords:

%Title
%Subject
%Author
%Manager
%Company
%Operator
%Category
%Comment
%Hlinkbase

which will be replaced by actual values of the corresponding fields of the File|Properties Word's dialog:

Equation translation

Translates equations created by the most popular tools

Microsoft Equation Editor 2.x-3.x
Equation Editor 4.0 (isn't released yet but is already supported!)
Design Science MathType 1.x,2.x,3.x,3.5,4.0,5.0

Unicode 3.0+MathType MTCode-based character/symbol translation

MTCode is MathType's superset of Unicode. Translations for mathematical symbols/characters is defined in the same table as for text characters.

Built-in visual tool for redefining equation translation rules

You can easily redefine translation rules for any equation template (like fraction, radical templates, etc.):

Customizable TEXT & VECTOR styles translation

Define translation template for equation parts which have TEXT or VECTOR style using following parameters:

Customizable translator of mathematical functions

Word2TeX will translate functions in equations even if they weren't marked with FUNCTION style, use following dialog to define new functions:

Detects whether equation is inline or display

If equation was marked as inline or display Word2TeX ignores such marking, it detects type of equation in very complicated manner. Actually Word2TeX can build display equation from many inline equations and/or italic text and/or super/sub-scripted text. Word2TeX can detect numbered equation even if equation number was typed as plain text (common thing for Equation Editor users).

Detects inline equations which were typed as italic text

Typing variable names as plain italic text (like x) instead of creating Equation Editor or MathType equation is common thing. Word2TeX will do its best to detect such variables and to translate them to math if following option is turned on:

Translates coloured equations

MathType versions 4.0, 5.0 and also Equation Editor 4.0 can create coloured equations. Word2TeX will translate coloured equations with the use of {color} package.

Equation numbering and referencing

As mentioned above, Word2TeX will detect numbered display equations automatically whether they were created with MathType Commands macros or as plain text. Moreover, Word2TeX will do proper cross-referencing in both cases.

Figure translation

Sequental figure naming

Since each figure is placed in separate file it is highly recommended to store output LaTeX documents in different folders. Names for these files are generated automatically: figN.eps (extension can be .pdf when converting figures to Encapsulated PDF), where 'fig' component is generated on the base of your document filename and N is number of that figure in document, but to avoid overwriting of files just mentioned, by figures of other document it is wise to number figures in each document within some unique range. Following parameter defines first figure number:

Figure placing

The placement specifier tells LaTeX where to place the figure. If no placement specifier is given, the standard classes assume [tbp]. Below is a short description what every specifier component means.

t at the top of a page,
b at the bottom of a page,
p on a special page containing only floats,
! without considering most of the internal parameters a which could stop this float from being placed.

Figure caption & referencing

Captions of figures & tables are represented in Word document as paragraphs with Caption style. Name of this style differs in localized Word versions and because of that you should enter name of this style under Caption style name option for proper translation of captions and for cross-referencing to figures & tables.

Converts to Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) or to Encapsulated PDF

Most common graphical format for LaTeX figures is EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), but available pdfTeX/pdfLaTeX versions do not accept EPS figures nevertheless they accept Encapsulated PDF. For your convenience Word2Tex provides you with both formats, just choose what you need:

Two ways to convert figures

There's two ways to convert figures: by rendering them to bitmap using built-in converter (raster image, limited quality) and by rendering them via PostScript printer driver (virtually perfect quality, no hardware like PostScript printer is actually required, only driver of some high-quality PostScript printer should be installed).

To convert figures using built-in converter you should specify real horizontal and vertical resolution (dpi) for bitmaps, background colour (since WMF may not have any background) and level of EPS language:

To convert figures via PostScript printer you must have some PostScript printer installed (only driver is actually required) and should choose this printer in the dialog shown below; note that this printer must have Encapsulated PostScript as output language (you can set this in printer properties):

Even more flexibility

Of course you might want to omit figures or to keep them in original format or to keep both original and converted one:

Customizable figure inclusion template

Word2TeX provides you with two templates for figure inclusion: the first is for including figures converted by built-in figure converter and the second - for figures generated by PostScript printer driver.

Values %x1,%y1, %x2,%y2 correspond to bounding-box;
%width,%height - width and height of figure;
%xscale,%yscale - scaling factors (already in PS metrics);
%filename - converted figure file name;
%sourcefilename - original (not converted) figure file name, if it's kept.

And even more!

Word2TeX translates all embedded OLE objects (except objects which represent equations) to figures. For instance, it will easily translate your embedded Excel chart or diagram to figure.

Table translation

Translates tables of an arbitrary structure, even with hanging cells

It is very easy to create tables of complicated structure in Word and moreover you can see what you are doing. Word2TeX will translate your tables to LaTeX, no matter how complicated they are. All other document elements (like equations, figures) will be translated properly when they are inside table. To translate paragraphs alignments inside table cells you should turn on this option:

And even multipage tables

If you turn on option shown below, Word2TeX will use {longtable} package for representing tables in LaTeX document and this will provide you with properly formatted multipage tables.

And even nested tables (table in table in table ..., available only in Word2000)

Word2TeX will translate nested tables no matter how deep they are!

Table scaling

Since Word represents all table dimensions (like column width, for example) in fixed values which were applicable for font dimensions you used in your table it is just impossible to translate table dimensions automatically. A little help from you is required, below is ruler which you can use to control scaling of table dimensions:

Table placing

The placement specifier tells LaTeX where to place the table. If no placement specifier is given, the standard classes assume [tbp]. Below is a short description what every specifier component means.

t at the top of a page,
b at the bottom of a page,
p on a special page containing only floats,
! without considering most of the internal parameters a which could stop this float from being placed.

Table caption & referencing

Captions of figures & tables are represented in Word document as paragraphs with Caption style. Name of this style differs in localized Word versions and because of that you should enter name of this style under Caption style name option for proper translation of captions and for cross-referencing to figures & tables.

REVTeX compatibility

Features included in this section aren't really only for REVTeX (American Physical Society LaTeX), but they were initially introduced in Word2TeX on request of REVTeX users.

If you turn on "Ignore empty paragraphs" option Word2TeX will never emit \bigskip command for series of empty paragraphs. Two other options don't need any futher comments (hopefully).

HyperTeX support

Translates hyperlinks

If following option is enabled

Word2TeX will create hyperlinks in LaTeX document with use of {hyperref} package, but if it isn't, they will be translated as plain text and character attributes (like underlining and blue color commonly used for hyperlinks in Word) will be carried over to LaTeX.

pdfTeX support

The most common case of HyperTeX usage is for translating LaTeX documents into PDF for Web publishing. There's two most frequently used tools for this: pdfTeX which compiles TeX/LaTeX documents directly to PDF and dvipdf utility which translates DVI files to PDF. If you are using pdfTeX the following option might be very useful to define extra preamble which will be emitted right after document preamble:

Other

Word2TeX omits text marked as "invisible" and this can be used for partial translation of documents.

Word2TeX works in multi-user environments.

Restrictions while unregistered

While unregistered following restrictions will take place:

only first 7 equations will be translated;
only first table will be translated;
only first figure will be translated;
Word2TeX will not save changed settings.