Limitations of importing Microsoft Word DOCX files

Overview

Because it’s the number one application for creating documents, converting documents from Microsoft’s Word DOCX format is an important feature of PageSeeder. However, as the two applications are based on very different architectures, it’s not possible (or desirable) for all information in a Word document to be imported to PageSeeder. This article explains the fundamental objectives and constraints of the conversion process.

What to expect!

Fonts

Font substitution and other font-related information is not converted. If there is some semantic attached to the fonts, search and replace the font changes with a style.

Revisions/Track Changes

Before importing a Word document with revisions (Track Changes is on), accept or reject the revisions. 

Comments

Not imported.

Lists

Because lists in Word include auto-numbered headings that sometimes include ordinary paragraphs, lists with unnumbered or unbulleted items are not imported as lists. However, the numbering and indenting are retained.

Section breaks

Section breaks are treated as page breaks. If headers and footers are based on sections, this link is lost; the first header and footer that appear are used throughout the document.

Font styles

Font styles such as bold, italic, underline, and strike-through are retained. All other variations, such as superscript, subscript, and small caps, are not supported in this release.

Bullet symbols

Not every bullet symbol is supported; a default symbol is used at each level.

Footnotes

Footnotes are converted into endnotes.

Image wrapping/alignment

For imported images, the following wrapping and alignment are supported: inline with no wrapping; relative horizontal alignment to a character; and left, right, or center alignment. All other types of alignment are converted to floating left, with an offset that corresponds to the position in the original document.

Tables

Tables in text documents follow these rules when converted:

• All cells have the same borders.
• Spanners—single cells that extend over several columns or rows—expand to match the maximum number of cells in that row or column.
• Nested tables are preserved, but they have a blank line preceding and following.

Headers/footers

Supports five fields in headers and footers: document name, owner, most recent date saved, page number, and total pages. Other fields are converted to text strings. Headers and footers aligned left for even-numbered pages are converted to right-aligned format.