LaTeX to Word

[Dieter Britz]

What is the best (free) program for converting a
LaTeX text to Word? There are equations in it.

--
Dieter Britz

[Karl Ratzsch]

Am 07.07.2015 um 14:49 schrieb Dieter Britz:
> What is the best (free) program for converting a
> LaTeX text to Word? There are equations in it.

What did you try and find unsatisfactory?

[Dieter Britz]

I know nothing, and wanted advice from here before I try.
Google seems to point me at pandoc, but how do I know what
works best? I fear for my equations.

--
Dieter Britz

[Anonymous]

> What is the best (free) program for converting a
> LaTeX text to Word? There are equations in it.

Use this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/latex2rtf/

RTF is probably sufficient, for whatever bizarre thing you're doing
that requires Word. If not, then use libre office or the like to
convert rtf to Word.

[Dieter Britz]

OK, I tried pandoc, no much good, and then latex2rtf,
very nice - except it didn't do the equations. Ar well,
I might have to write them in myself, which means I have
to find out how to do equations in Libre Office... unless
of course there is a conversion program that can do them
too.

--
Dieter Britz

[Robert Heller]

Converting LaTeX to Word (and vs. versa) using a computer is *always* going to
be problematical. Like trying to convert an apple into an orange. Yes, they
are approximatly the same shape and close to the same size generally and are
both fruit, but they are just too different otherwise... :-) There isn't,
AFAIK, any automatic way to convert LaTeX to Word that works for all cases.
Each method will do a less-than-perfect job, for various measures of 'less'
and 'perfect'. The only 'perfect' conversion program runs only on grey
matter...

--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
hel...@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

[Scott Pakin]

On 07/07/2015 06:49 AM, Dieter Britz wrote:
> What is the best (free) program for converting a
> LaTeX text to Word? There are equations in it.

I've not found anything I liked significantly, but here's a collection of
programs to try:

https://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html

-- Scott

[Peter Flynn]

On 07/07/2015 07:37 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Tue, 7 Jul 2015 17:04:38 +0000 (UTC) Dieter Britz <dieterh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:17:13 +0000, Dieter Britz wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 16:45:27 +0200, Karl Ratzsch wrote:
>>>
>>>> Am 07.07.2015 um 14:49 schrieb Dieter Britz:
>>>>> What is the best (free) program for converting a LaTeX text to Word?
>>>>> There are equations in it.
>>>>
>>>> What did you try and find unsatisfactory?
>>>
>>> I know nothing, and wanted advice from here before I try. Google seems
>>> to point me at pandoc, but how do I know what works best? I fear for my
>>> equations.
>>
>> OK, I tried pandoc, no much good,

Pandoc is supposed to be able to render LaTeX equations into Word.
If it doesn't, what did it do?

> Converting LaTeX to Word (and vs. versa) using a computer is *always*
> going to be problematical.

Vice versa is not a problem with styles. Robust transformation from
.docx (OOXML) to LaTeX is reasonably straightforward if styles were
used; but yes, otherwise it's a complete mess.

> Like trying to convert an apple into an orange.

LaTeX can do stuff other systems can't. So in many cases there's nothing
to transform *to*.

> The only 'perfect' conversion program runs only on grey matter...

Don't author in raw LaTeX. Author in something for which a programmable
transformation exists, like XML or Markdown or even (gasp) Word with
rigorous styles; and only turn it into LaTeX for formatting the PDF. But
this is a step too much for most authors.

///Peter

[micha...@gmail.com]

> What is the best (free) program for converting a
> LaTeX text to Word? There are equations in it.

tex4ht can convert LaTeX to LibreOffice's ODT. command for compilation is:

mk4ht oolatex filename

Although recent Word versions can open ODT files, it has a problem with math produced by tex4ht. To fix it, you can open it and then save in LibreOffice or OpenOffice. See http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/197989/2891 for some details.

[Bob Tennent]

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 22:25:34 +0100, Peter Flynn wrote:
>
> Don't author in raw LaTeX. Author in something for which a programmable
> transformation exists,

tex4ht does a good job with "raw LaTeX", but math is going to be
problematic for any conversion

Bob T.

[Joost Kremers]

Peter Flynn wrote:
> Don't author in raw LaTeX. Author in something for which a programmable
> transformation exists, like XML

Who'd want to write XML?

> or Markdown

Unfortunately, Markdown is not nearly as powerful as LaTeX. And due to
its simple nature, it's inherently ambiguous.

Of course, Markdown has its uses, and it may definitely be sufficient
for certain purposes, but sometimes you just need LaTeX.

Besides, with a decent editor, editing LaTeX source isn't that
cumbersome:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t04fuik9g7bjbyw/Emacs.png?dl=0

(That's editable LaTeX source, not some preview mode or LyX or something.)


--
Joost Kremers joostk...@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

[John Harper]

Anonymous wrote:

> Use this:
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/latex2rtf/
>
> RTF is probably sufficient, for whatever bizarre thing you're doing
> that requires Word. If not, then use libre office or the like to
> convert rtf to Word.

Bizarre? I use LaTeX for my own purposes but a few years ago I was required
by conference organisers to prepare my slides in PowerPoint (because the
conference was at a Micro$oft-dominated hotel) and I was advised the only
way to do it was to start again from scratch in Word. Is there now a good
pdf to ppt converter?

[Mauro Orlandini]

Il Tue, 07 Jul 2015 12:49:51 +0000, Dieter Britz ha scritto:

> What is the best (free) program for converting a LaTeX text to Word?
> There are equations in it.

You could try to convert to HTML, via latex2html, and then import the
html file into word. latex2html converts maths into graphics, therefore
the result is usually satisfactory.

Ciao, Mauro

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

I personally would not want to present at a hotel dominated by
advice to use Word to write PowerPoint presentations :-)-O

el

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Why?


el

[Rolf Niepraschk]

Am 07.07.2015 um 14:49 schrieb Dieter Britz:

> What is the best (free) program for converting a
> LaTeX text to Word? There are equations in it.
>

Try the following:

https://github.com/transpect/docx2tex

...Rolf

[Rolf Niepraschk]

Oh sorry. The wrong direction ;-)

...Rolf

[Dieter Britz]

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 22:25:34 +0100, Peter Flynn wrote:

> On 07/07/2015 07:37 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Tue, 7 Jul 2015 17:04:38 +0000 (UTC) Dieter Britz
>> <dieterh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:17:13 +0000, Dieter Britz wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 16:45:27 +0200, Karl Ratzsch wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Am 07.07.2015 um 14:49 schrieb Dieter Britz:
>>>>>> What is the best (free) program for converting a LaTeX text to
>>>>>> Word?
>>>>>> There are equations in it.
>>>>>
>>>>> What did you try and find unsatisfactory?
>>>>
>>>> I know nothing, and wanted advice from here before I try. Google
>>>> seems to point me at pandoc, but how do I know what works best? I
>>>> fear for my equations.
>>>
>>> OK, I tried pandoc, no much good,
>
> Pandoc is supposed to be able to render LaTeX equations into Word.
> If it doesn't, what did it do?

I have wiped the file now and removed pandoc, but I remember
after giving it to Libre Office that the equations were
presented as some sort of markup looking a bit like LaTeX
maths, starting with a $ etc. But with LO I should get WYSiWYG.

--
Dieter Britz

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

In article <mnhobm$jbv$1...@dont-email.me>, John Harper

<john....@vuw.ac.nz> writes:

> Bizarre? I use LaTeX for my own purposes but a few years ago I was required
> by conference organisers to prepare my slides in PowerPoint (because the
> conference was at a Micro$oft-dominated hotel) and I was advised the only
> way to do it was to start again from scratch in Word. Is there now a good
> pdf to ppt converter?

Surely the Microsoft system can display PDF files? Just produce PDF
from LaTeX.

I use something like this:

\input{1e.tex}
\item \textcolor{black}{Conclusions and outlook}

1e.tex will include 1d.tex and add something to it, and so on.

This way, I can page through the PDF file and have items appear one at a
time.

[Peter Flynn]

On 07/07/2015 11:18 PM, Joost Kremers wrote:
> Peter Flynn wrote:
>> Don't author in raw LaTeX. Author in something for which a programmable
>> transformation exists, like XML
>
> Who'd want to write XML?

[...]

> Besides, with a decent editor, editing LaTeX source isn't that
> cumbersome:

Same applies to XML. The users shouldn't need to know what the markup is
unless they are trying to do something *very* complex (like linguistic
tagging in TEI). But not all editors are that good.

///Peter

[Robert Heller]

At Wed, 8 Jul 2015 17:22:03 +0000 (UTC) hel...@asclothestro.multivax.de (Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)) wrote:

>
> In article <mnhobm$jbv$1...@dont-email.me>, John Harper
> <john....@vuw.ac.nz> writes:
>
> > Bizarre? I use LaTeX for my own purposes but a few years ago I was required
> > by conference organisers to prepare my slides in PowerPoint (because the
> > conference was at a Micro$oft-dominated hotel) and I was advised the only
> > way to do it was to start again from scratch in Word. Is there now a good
> > pdf to ppt converter?
>
> Surely the Microsoft system can display PDF files? Just produce PDF
> from LaTeX.

I don't believe MS-Windows natively includes any PDF reader software as part
of the basic install. PDF readers need to be downloaded from *third party*
(eg Adobe and others) websites and installed as third party addons. *Some* MS
shops disalow any 'third party' software -- only *MS* software can be
installed. MS does not provide a PDF resder, even as an 'add on' package.

So, no a typical *stock* MS-Windows system cannot display a PDF file.

>
> I use something like this:
>
> \input{1e.tex}
> \item \textcolor{black}{Conclusions and outlook}
>
> 1e.tex will include 1d.tex and add something to it, and so on.
>
> This way, I can page through the PDF file and have items appear one at a
> time.
>
>

[Robert Heller]

The difference between editing XML and LaTeX is that 90% of the time LaTeX
source is just text with paragraphs indicated by a blank line. I presume an
XML document is going to look something like HTML 'gibberish', with <tag>'s
all over the place:

<section heading="This is a section">
<p>This is a paragraph. Blah, blah, blah...</p>
<p>This is another paragraph. Mumble, mumble.</p>
</section>

As opposed to:

\section{This is a section}
This is a paragraph. Blah, blah, blah...

This is another paragraph. Mumble, mumble.

OTOH, if you mean some sort of semi-WYSIWYG editor that 'hides' the markup,
that is something different. And no *I* refuse to use that sort of editor.
When I edit a file I want to see what is really there, warts, markup,
whatever. I don't want it colored or with markup (of whatever sort) 'hidden'
from view.


>
> ///Peter

[Axel Berger]

Peter Flynn wrote on Tue, 15-07-07 23:25:

>Don't author in raw LaTeX. Author in something for which a programmable
>transformation exists, like XML or Markdown or even (gasp) Word with
>rigorous styles; and only turn it into LaTeX for formatting the PDF. But
>this is a step too much for most authors.

It is. The end result of Word is mostly good enough for me, it's the
ease of writing that binds me to LaTeX. Markdown is fine for what it
is, but too limited for more than a first draft. XML is excessively
verbose but might be doable with the help of a good editor. Pointee
clickee abominations are out of the question.

[Axel Berger]

John Harper wrote on Wed, 15-07-08 01:47:

>(because the conference was at a Micro$oft-dominated hotel)

>the only way to do it was to start again from scratch in Word

I don't believe it. There are few things as ubiquitous and as
standardized as PDF. If it's a finished presentation PDF to bitmap to
PPT should be trivial, prabably even with the bitmap step.

[Axel Berger]

Dieter Britz wrote on Tue, 15-07-07 19:04:

>I have to find out how to do equations in Libre Office

Funny enough they've seen the light and use TeX code. Unfortunately
it's plain TeX and not LaTeX, so still a lot of rewriting.

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Every single hotel (business center) that I have been in anywhere in the
world, for the last 10 years, had Adobe Reader installed. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Usually ancient versions, but I have yet to fail to print a document
from a USB stick.


No, my point was that the original poster said the wanted him to use
word to write PowerPoint :-)-OI

el

On 2015-07-08 21:35, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Wed, 8 Jul 2015 17:22:03 +0000 (UTC)
> hel...@asclothestro.multivax.de (Phillip Helbig (undress to
> reply)) wrote:

[...]

> I don't believe MS-Windows natively includes any PDF reader
> software as part of the basic install. PDF readers need to be
> downloaded from *third party* (eg Adobe and others) websites and
> installed as third party addons. *Some* MS shops disalow any
> 'third party' software -- only *MS* software can be installed. MS
> does not provide a PDF resder, even as an 'add on' package.
>
> So, no a typical *stock* MS-Windows system cannot display a PDF file.

[...]

[Dieter Britz]

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 22:25:34 +0100, Peter Flynn wrote:

> On 07/07/2015 07:37 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Tue, 7 Jul 2015 17:04:38 +0000 (UTC) Dieter Britz
>> <dieterh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:17:13 +0000, Dieter Britz wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 16:45:27 +0200, Karl Ratzsch wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Am 07.07.2015 um 14:49 schrieb Dieter Britz:
>>>>>> What is the best (free) program for converting a LaTeX text to
>>>>>> Word?
>>>>>> There are equations in it.
>>>>>
>>>>> What did you try and find unsatisfactory?
>>>>
>>>> I know nothing, and wanted advice from here before I try. Google
>>>> seems to point me at pandoc, but how do I know what works best? I
>>>> fear for my equations.
>>>
>>> OK, I tried pandoc, no much good,
>
> Pandoc is supposed to be able to render LaTeX equations into Word.
> If it doesn't, what did it do?

I typed in what I found as an example for its use:

pandoc -s writeup.tex -o writeup.docx

and around the first equation it looks like this:

The reaction system is represented by the two reactions
$$\label{reactionsys}
\begin{split}
\mathrm{A} &\rightarrow \mathrm{B} \qquad \mbox{(rate} \;\,k_1) \\
\mathrm{A} &\rightleftharpoons \mathrm{C}
\qquad \mbox{(forw. rate}\,\; k_2, \;\mbox{backw. rate}\,
\;k_3) \\
\mathrm{C} &\rightleftharpoons \mathrm{D}
\qquad \mbox{(forw. rate}\,\; k_4, \;\mbox{backw. rate}\,
\;k_5)
\end{split}$$
in which A stands for MG, B for 3-HHD, C the MG monohydrate and D

- so it gave up and reproduced the LaTeX source text of the
equation (except that it put $$ where I have \begin{equation} and
\end{equation} ). Also the tables were not tables anymore. I do use the
booktabs package and I guess pandoc doesn't know about it.
--
Dieter Britz

[Peter Flynn]

On 07/08/2015 09:49 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Wed, 08 Jul 2015 20:36:42 +0100 Peter Flynn <pe...@silmaril.ie> wrote:

[...]

>> Same applies to XML. The users shouldn't need to know what the markup is
>> unless they are trying to do something *very* complex (like linguistic
>> tagging in TEI). But not all editors are that good.
>
> The difference between editing XML and LaTeX is that 90% of the time LaTeX
> source is just text with paragraphs indicated by a blank line. I presume an
> XML document is going to look something like HTML 'gibberish', with <tag>'s
> all over the place:

Yes, exactly (well, almost)

> <section heading="This is a section">

That would be a bit like using the optional argument to \item: not
everything will work there (eg \verb won't). XML would typically use
even more of those dreaded tags:

<section>
<title>This is a section</title>

> <p>This is a paragraph. Blah, blah, blah...</p>
> <p>This is another paragraph. Mumble, mumble.</p>
> </section>
>
> As opposed to:
>
> \section{This is a section}
> This is a paragraph. Blah, blah, blah...

SGML could be simpler, with omissible end-tags and lots of cunning stuff
to abbreviate the markup, because it was designed in the days when it
all had to be typed in by hand. No-one in their right minds would do
that today, when editors can do it for you.

The reason for insisting on fully-enclosed elements is that it makes it
far easier to handle the resulting documents programmatically: you know
exactly where everything starts and ends before you begin.

But yes, it's more verbose if you insist on reading the markup as text.
We knew that. That's why the 10th design goal says what it says. The
benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

> This is another paragraph. Mumble, mumble.
>
> OTOH, if you mean some sort of semi-WYSIWYG editor that 'hides' the markup,
> that is something different.

That is precisely what I meant. It's what people ask for, partly because
they have been conditioned by three decades of graphical interfaces to
believe that that is the only interface model in existence; and partly
because most authors shouldn't need to see pointy brackets or
backslashes and curly braces. As I said, it's unfortunate that there are
no editors out there good enough to satisfy this requirement *for the
non-XML-expert or non-TeX-expert author*.

> And no *I* refuse to use that sort of editor.
> When I edit a file I want to see what is really there, warts, markup,
> whatever. I don't want it colored or with markup (of whatever sort) 'hidden'
> from view.

Me too. I use Emacs for everything anyway :-)

///Peter

[Peter Flynn]

On 07/08/2015 12:47 AM, John Harper wrote:
> Bizarre? I use LaTeX for my own purposes but a few years ago I was required
> by conference organisers to prepare my slides in PowerPoint (because the
> conference was at a Micro$oft-dominated hotel) and I was advised the only
> way to do it was to start again from scratch in Word.

What is a "Microsoft-dominated hotel"? I've never come across one. Was
it owned by Microsoft?

Sure, hotel admin systems can be Microsoft (remember when they were all
highly-proprietary Unix? :-), but what has that got to do with
presentations?

Surely the podium PC had Acrobat Reader installed? Or people could use
their own laptops?

Or were the organisers simply idiots?

///Peter

[Fred Smith]

On 2015-08-28, Peter Flynn <pe...@silmaril.ie> wrote:
>
> Or were the organisers simply idiots?
>
> ///Peter
>
>

I remember conferences over a decade ago where the organisers were
idiots, insisting on only Word or PowerPoint submissions. Even if
everything eventually went into PDF for electronic distribution.
And I doubt things have improved since.

fred.

[Jack Ryan]

> I remember conferences over a decade ago where the organisers were
> idiots, insisting on only Word or PowerPoint submissions. Even if
> everything eventually went into PDF for electronic distribution.
> And I doubt things have improved since.

Holding a conference at such a hotel would effectively sponsor
ignorance. In this case, the OP is essentially asking us for help in
sponsoring ignorance, which makes us enablers. We should not be so
eager to serve as accessories to this foolishness.

OP should find a different venue -- that's the only real solution.