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I wasn't allowed to use Word or a PC but I think I looked at that tool. I might have even tested it. But it's about a year and a half ago. I hope I don't have to do a job like that again. I knew in the first week it wasnât going to go well and I kept trying to tell them.
Usually companies that hire me know that I'm not just a technical writer but I have technical chops, having been a developer as well.
This company didn't see me that way until the end of the contract. I was working with a marketing team (something I've never done before) so their focus was not on technology, just on making things look good.
I guess that point of view cost them a lot of money. I am just fortunate that they didn't try to make me pay for their mistake. There is a new trend out here in Seattle where they want tech writers to sign contracts that include language regarding having them redo mistakes or pay for them. But I was very vocal about how their plan wasn't going to work or if they had someone do it, it might take about 2 1/2-3 months to do just the conversion work. And it wasn't going to be me doing it.
Lin Laurie
206.900.1861
www.linlaurie.com
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+linlaurie1=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l-bounces+linlaurie1=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> On Behalf Of Chris Morton
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2020 1:36 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Tips to convert Google Docs into clean HTML?
Thinking out loud...
How about exporting from GD to Word, then save the result in Word as a .DOC (not .DOCX).
On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 4:18 PM Lin Laurie <linlaurie1 -at- hotmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Last year, I had a huge project that they wanted written in Google
> docs (some of their existing docs were already in there and they
> wanted to move the topics into SalesForce. I kept asking to work on a
> PC but they wanted me to work on a Chromebook. There doesn't seem to
> be a way to take Google Docs and transfer them into HTML in a clean way.
>
> The process they came up with was horrible and involved having to add
> code to share the files on the server or some such stuff. If you just
> copying and pasted the HTML into SF the links would break to images so
> we had to save them and the share them. It was truly the most
> convoluted process I ever saw.
>
> IN the end, they had the PM take it over so I could just develop the
> documentation so I wrote for 6 mos and at the end of the project, they
> had
> 6 mos of Google Docs but no workable process to get them into SF. Then
> they laid off all the people on the project (bad sales figures) and
> never did get all the documentation I wrote into their new
> implementation. I felt so sick about it. It was such a waste of money
> and all it would have taken to make it work was a PC... One of the
> funny things was that after I was there a month, they started to allow
> PCs in the company, but not to me on that project.
>
> I did enjoy the job and have great references and some good friends
> from working there, but what a sad story.
>
> LMK if anyone finds a good process to convert from GD to HTML. I'd
> love to pass it on.
>
> Lin Laurie
> 206.900.1861
> www.linlaurie.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+linlaurie1=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> <techwr-l-bounces+linlaurie1=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> On Behalf
> Of Geoff Mann
> Sent: Friday, April 17, 2020 12:06 PM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Tips to convert Google Docs into clean HTML?
>
> Hey folks. Just following up in case anyone else needs to do this.
> Here's the best method that I've come up with to convert one doc at a time.
> 1. Copy content from a Google Doc and paste it into TextEdit (on Mac).
> TextEdit strips most of the HTML noise behind the scenes and retains
> essential formatting (e.g., headings, paragraphs, bolding, lists, and
> links). I'm guessing some other text editors may work as well.
> 2. Copy content from TextEdit and paste it into a doc tool's WYSIWYG
> editor. My current project is in Document360, but I don't know why it
> wouldn't work with others.
> 3. View the pasted content in the doc tool's HTML editor and tweak
> remaining HTML, which is significantly cleaner than any other
> solutions I've tested. In my case, cleanup primarily consists of
> adjusting nested list tags so they don't close too soon.
>
> Hope that helps someone.
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2020 at 12:23 PM Geoff Mann
> <geoff -dot- mann -at- uxwordsense -dot- com>
> wrote:
>
> > Just to elaborate a bit, the key conversion issue I run into with
> > various methods is that ordered lists break when they contain nested
> > items such as paragraphs and other lists.
> >
> > There is a script out there (thanks, Keith) --
> > http://jimbir.ch/blog/clean-google-docs-html-programmatically --
> > that is a few steps in the right direction for individual files, but
> > it doesn't solve the list numbering issue. Plus, the process isn't
> > ideal for a large number of files primarily because it outputs to
> > email, which adds steps to the overall process.
> >
> > There are also a couple online HTML generators such as
> > https://html-online.com/editor/ and https://htmlg.com/html-editor/,
> > but again they don't handle nested lists well and are limited to one
> > file at a time. That said, any one-file-at-a-time solution is
> > workable considering that's all I have now.
> >
> > Cheers!
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 10:34 PM Geoff Mann
> > <geoff -dot- mann -at- uxwordsense -dot- com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hey folks,
> >>
> >> I hope to speed up my manual process for converting Google Docs
> >> into clean HTML, which currently consists of copying G Doc content
> >> into a CMS's WYSIWYG and cleaning up the HTML with a few
> >> search-and-replaces a couple manual tweaks. I'm sure there isn't a
> >> magic one-click solution that will convert the full range of
> >> formatting options that a tech writer utilizes (e.g., in-list
> >> indentations and nested lists), but does anyone happen to use a
> >> Chrome plugin or script that can export clean(er) HTML? Bonus
> >> points for a solution that can handle a
> batch of Google Doc files as once.
> >>
> >> Thanks for pondering.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Geoff
> >>
> >
> >
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