Word to HTMLMarch 4, 2015

Accessibility Awareness

At this point in time, the training goal is to develop an awareness of web content accessibility and look at tools and methods for addressing accessibility. We plan to do this by department.

It is NOT to tell you to jump in to your courses and immediately make everything accessible or to create a state of panic.

As far as I know, other than converting syllabi from Word or PDF to accessible HTML for all courses by Fall 2015, we do not have a definite time frame or scheduled plan.

Convert Word to HTML-Questions (1)

Why are we doing this anyway? Why HTML?Answer: HTML is easy to edit in D2L. Faculty do not have to download or save a pdf as Word to update a syllabus.

Why can’t we just paste from Word to D2L?Answer: (See handout for details) Link to Article about Pasting from Word.In short, you are copying all of the invisible Microsoft XML formatting and it overrides formatting in the HTML page. Without being technical, the formatting for HTML pages is saved in styles (sometimes a separate file and sometimes at the top of your HTML document) and the formatting copied from Word overrides the HTML formatting.

Our goal is to copy words and skip the formatting.

Convert Word to HTML-Questions (2)

Are there multiple ways of converting from Word to HTML?Answer: Yes. See methods below: Copy and paste to D2L using “Paste as Text.” (requires a lot of

formatting)

Copy and paste to D2L using “Paste as Word.” (does not clean Word code)

Clear Formatting in Word. (similar to “Paste as Text”)

Save as HTML from Word. (creates a separate folder with several files that must be managed; retains all of the Word formatting)

Save as filtered HTML from Word. (creates a separate folder with images; retains all of the Word formatting)

Use an online tool named Word2HTML to clean Word code. (requires pasting to code view in HTML)

Supported Features

Paste as Plain Text

Word-Clear Formatting

Word2HTML Online Tool

HTML-Cleaner (with default settings)

Lists No No Yes (Double-space) Yes

Headings No No Yes Yes

Bold No No Yes Yes

Images No No No No

Links No Yes Yes Yes

Table Layout No Yes Yes Yes

Table Headers No No No No

Convert Word to HTML-Questions (3)

The table on this slide shows the features that are preserved when Word is transferred to HTML. The list of supported features are lists, headings, bold, images, links, table layout and table headers. Each feature is indicated by Yes or No. Paste as Plain Text. (all No answers). Word-Clear Formatting (Only links and table layout transfer). Word2HTML Online Tool (Yes to all except images and table headers). HTML-Cleaner (Yes to all except images and table headers.)

Convert Word to HTML-Questions (4)

Why did you choose the HTML-Cleaner tool when there are other ways to convert?Answer:

We can add much of the page structure (headings, lists, etc.) in Word before conversion.

Faculty are familiar with Word and don’t find it as daunting a task.

Many (not all) of the accessibility features are retained once the document is run through the HTML-Cleaner.

We do not have to copy and paste code.