Formatted text, including HTML, Word of OpenOffice documents, can be converted to MediaWiki markup, with formatting.
There are a few techniques which are now being trialed. It may be that wikEd is better for HTML files and OpenOffice is better for Word/rtf files (and Word/rtf files converted from PDF).[verification needed]
If you are starting with a PDF document, it must first be converted to formatted text in another application, before it can be converted to MediaWiki: see Help:Porting PDF files to MediaWiki.
Online conversion
The best solution is often this HTML2Wiki online converter. Insert the url (or raw HTML), and remember to select MediaWiki as the Wiki dialect.
Advantages:
- No need to set anything up
Disadvantages:
- In the output, you have to search past the header, sidebar code etc to find the actual content you're looking for in the wiki output. (Just a little inconvenient. Do a search, ctrl+f, for the title of the page, and it should bring you to the start.)
wikEd
Another method is to use wikEd. It may be best to install this on another wiki you only use for this purpose You must install this on the account there, then convert the content there, then paste to Appropedia. (E.g. I use Wiki Species, and a sandbox in my userspace, i.e. User:Chriswaterguy/sandbox - but I don't actually save the page there. --Chriswaterguy 11:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC))
Otherwise install on your Appropedia account - (but does this clash with our new WYSIWYG editor? --Chriswaterguy 11:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)) you can easily copy formatted text to the edit box, hit [w] ("wikify"), and you're most of the way there.
This seems to work best for HTML.[verification needed]
OpenOffice
- Open the file or copy the content in OpenOffice 2.3 or greater;
- Export to MediaWiki format: File menu -> Export -> Under format type choose MediaWiki - this exports wikimarkup as a txt file.
(If this is inadequate (e.g. for dealing with images and references) then we have worked out some VB macro code, and will post everything we know. First need to upgrade and try out the feature. --Chriswaterguy · talk 16:52, 7 February 2008 (PST))
Images
Are images saved automatically during file export from OpenOffice? Tags to indicate image location?
Rich text editors for the wiki
In the medium to long term, Appropedia:Rich text editing (i.e. WYSIWYG or some variation on that) might make this easier. There are problems, including fears that this will lead to non-standard markup being entered, and excess use of HTML tags if they are not converted effectively.
Other methods
These haven't been tried yet:
- mw:Extension:Send2Wiki (uses html2wiki) -- allows quick conversion with a browser's bookmarklet.
- HTML->MediaWiki converter -- demo of the HTML::WikiConverter perl module. (See also WikiConverter.)
- convert formatted text (Word or whatever) to HTML (can be done in Open office); Run through HTMLtidy (or (HTML Tidy online); Use HTML2Wiki perl script to output media wiki syntax. Done! (based on suggestion by Sam Rose.)
Interwiki links
Some may be useful: