Quickly Convert (.rtf|.doc) Files to Markdown Syntax with PHP

Question

I've been manually converting articles into Markdown syntax for a few days now, and it's getting rather tedious. Some of these are 3 or 4 pages, italics and other emphasized text throughout. Is there a faster way to convert (.rtf|.doc) files to clean Markdown Syntax that I can take advantage of?

Answer 1

If you happen to be on a mac, textutil does a good job of converting doc, docx, and rtf to html, and pandoc does a good job of converting the resulting html to markdown:

$ textutil -convert html file.doc -stdout | pandoc -f html -t markdown -o file.md 

I have a script that I threw together a while back that tries to use textutil, pdf2html, and pandoc to convert whatever I throw at it to markdown.

Answer 2

ProgTips has a possible solution with a Word macro ^{(source download)}:

A simple macro ^{(source download)} for converting the most trivial things automatically. This macro does:

• Replace bold and italics
• Replace headings (marked heading 1-6)
• Replace numbered and bulleted lists

It's very buggy, I believe it hangs on larger documents, however I'm NOT stating it's a stable release anyway! :-) Experimental use only, recode and reuse it as you like, post a comment if you've found a better solution.

Source: ProgTips

Macro source

Installation

• open WinWord,
• press Alt+F11 to open the VBA editor,
• right click the first project in the project browser
• choose insert->module
• paste the code from the file
• close macro editor
• go tools>macro>macros; run the macro named MarkDown

Source: ProgTips

Source

Macro source for safe keeping if ProgTips deletes the post or the site gets wiped out:

'*** A simple MsWord->Markdown replacement macro by Kriss Rauhvargers, 2006.02.02.
'*** This tool does NOT implement all the markup specified in MarkDown definition by John Gruber, only
'*** the most simple things. These are:
'*** 1) Replaces all non-list paragraphs to ^p paragraph so MarkDown knows it is a stand-alone paragraph
'*** 2) Converts tables to text. In fact, tables get lost.
'*** 3) Adds a single indent to all indented paragraphs
'*** 4) Replaces all the text in italics to _text_
'*** 5) Replaces all the text in bold to **text**
'*** 6) Replaces Heading1-6 to #..#Heading (Heading numbering gets lost)
'*** 7) Replaces bulleted lists with ^p *  listitem ^p*  listitem2...
'*** 8) Replaces numbered lists with ^p 1. listitem ^p2.  listitem2...
'*** Feel free to use and redistribute this code
Sub MarkDown()
    Dim bReplace As Boolean
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim oPara As Paragraph
    
        
    'remove formatting from paragraph sign so that we dont get **blablabla^p** but rather **blablabla**^p
    Call RemoveBoldEnters
    
    
    For i = Selection.Document.Tables.Count To 1 Step -1
            Call Selection.Document.Tables(i).ConvertToText
    Next
    
    'simple text indent + extra paragraphs for non-numbered paragraphs
    For i = Selection.Document.Paragraphs.Count To 1 Step -1
        Set oPara = Selection.Document.Paragraphs(i)
        If oPara.Range.ListFormat.ListType = wdListNoNumbering Then
            If oPara.LeftIndent > 0 Then
                oPara.Range.InsertBefore (">")
            End If
            oPara.Range.InsertBefore (vbCrLf)
        End If
        
        
    Next
    
    'italic -> _italic_
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    bReplace = ReplaceOneItalic  'first replacement
    While bReplace 'other replacements
        bReplace = ReplaceOneItalic
    Wend

    'bold-> **bold**
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    bReplace = ReplaceOneBold 'first replacement
    While bReplace
        bReplace = ReplaceOneBold 'other replacements
    Wend
    
   
    
    'Heading -> ##heading
    For i = 1 To 6 'heading1 to heading6
        Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
        bReplace = ReplaceH(i) 'first replacement
        While bReplace
            bReplace = ReplaceH(i) 'other replacements
        Wend
    Next
    
    Call ReplaceLists
    
    
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
End Sub


'***************************************************************
' Function to replace bold with _bold_, only the first occurance
' Returns true if any occurance found, false otherwise
' Originally recorded by WinWord macro recorder, probably contains
' quite a lot of useless code
'***************************************************************
Function ReplaceOneBold() As Boolean
    Dim bReturn As Boolean

    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = ""
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Font.Bold = True
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    
    bReturn = False
    While Selection.Find.Execute = True
        bReturn = True
        Selection.Text = "**" & Selection.Text & "**"
        Selection.Font.Bold = False
        Selection.Find.Execute
    Wend
    
    ReplaceOneBold = bReturn
End Function

'*******************************************************************
' Function to replace italic with _italic_, only the first occurance
' Returns true if any occurance found, false otherwise
' Originally recorded by WinWord macro recorder, probably contains
' quite a lot of useless code
'********************************************************************
Function ReplaceOneItalic() As Boolean
    Dim bReturn As Boolean

        Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = ""
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Font.Italic = True
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    
    bReturn = False
    While Selection.Find.Execute = True
        bReturn = True
        Selection.Text = "_" & Selection.Text & "_"
        Selection.Font.Italic = False
        Selection.Find.Execute
    Wend
    ReplaceOneItalic = bReturn
End Function

'*********************************************************************
' Function to replace headingX with #heading, only the first occurance
' Returns true if any occurance found, false otherwise
' Originally recorded by WinWord macro recorder, probably contains
' quite a lot of useless code
'*********************************************************************
Function ReplaceH(ByVal ipNumber As Integer) As Boolean
    Dim sReplacement As String
    
    Select Case ipNumber
    Case 1: sReplacement = "#"
    Case 2: sReplacement = "##"
    Case 3: sReplacement = "###"
    Case 4: sReplacement = "####"
    Case 5: sReplacement = "#####"
    Case 6: sReplacement = "######"
    End Select
    
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Heading " & ipNumber)
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = ""
        .Replacement.Text = ""
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    
   
     bReturn = False
    While Selection.Find.Execute = True
        bReturn = True
        Selection.Range.InsertBefore (vbCrLf & sReplacement & " ")
        Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Normal")
        Selection.Find.Execute
    Wend
    
    ReplaceH = bReturn
End Function



'***************************************************************
' A fix-up for paragraph marks that ar are bold or italic
'***************************************************************
Sub RemoveBoldEnters()
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Font.Italic = True
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Bold = False
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Italic = False
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = True
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Font.Bold = True
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Bold = False
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Italic = False
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = True
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

'***************************************************************
' Function to replace bold with _bold_, only the first occurance
' Returns true if any occurance found, false otherwise
' Originally recorded by WinWord macro recorder, probably contains
' quite a lot of useless code
'***************************************************************
Sub ReplaceLists()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim j As Integer
    Dim Para As Paragraph
        
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    
    'iterate through all the lists in the document
    For i = Selection.Document.Lists.Count To 1 Step -1
        'check each paragraph in the list
        For j = Selection.Document.Lists(i).ListParagraphs.Count To 1 Step -1
            Set Para = Selection.Document.Lists(i).ListParagraphs(j)
            'if it's a bulleted list
            If Para.Range.ListFormat.ListType = wdListBullet Then
                        Para.Range.InsertBefore (ListIndent(Para.Range.ListFormat.ListLevelNumber, "*"))
            'if it's a numbered list
            ElseIf Para.Range.ListFormat.ListType = wdListSimpleNumbering Or _
                                                    wdListMixedNumbering Or _
                                                    wdListListNumOnly Then
                Para.Range.InsertBefore (Para.Range.ListFormat.ListValue & ".  ")
            End If
        Next j
        'inserts paragraph marks before and after, removes the list itself
        Selection.Document.Lists(i).Range.InsertParagraphBefore
        Selection.Document.Lists(i).Range.InsertParagraphAfter
        Selection.Document.Lists(i).RemoveNumbers
    Next i
End Sub

'***********************************************************
' Returns the MarkDown indent text
'***********************************************************
Function ListIndent(ByVal ipNumber As Integer, ByVal spChar As String) As String
    Dim i  As Integer
    For i = 1 To ipNumber - 1
        ListIndent = ListIndent & "    "
    Next
    ListIndent = ListIndent & spChar & "    "
End Function

Source: ProgTips