Tag: help-requests

Tech Help Needed: MS Word HTML to DOCX

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=compusaurOh, Great Internet Guru. Your technical help is required.

I’m writing some perl scripts at work that have as one of their ultimate end goals the generation of an MS Word document that can ideally serve as a subdocument in a master document/subdocument arrangement. I’ve done Master/Subdocuments before with DOCX format, and I’ve discovered that if the master is a DOC, it will look for subdocuments that are DOCs.

So far, I’ve got the script generating the variant of HTML that Word understands so that it can get the proper formats (e.g., I copy the prologue that defines the Word formats I need and generate HTML with appropriate CLASS= statements). This gives me a standalone .htm file, which I can rename as .doc and Word handles just fine. However, if you save it, Word knows it is really HTML and creates this funky subdirectory with files that it really doesn’t use.

I’ve been looking for a way that I can convert this .HTM or .DOC file into a real Word .DOC or .DOCX file without interaction (i.e., from the command line). I tried going the Macro approach, and even found that it saves the macro in that subdirectory for the .HTM files… however, the security restrictions on our systems here mean that I can’t execute the macro from the MS Word command line via /m . There’s a file WORDCONV.EXE in the Office12 directory, but it doesn’t seem to do anything, and I can’t seem to find any documentation on it.

So, for those MS Word gurus out there — any ideas? I can live with what I’ve got now (the .htm file I rename); I’d just like something cleaner.

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Blanking on a Name

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m trying to find the name for something I remember, so I’m turning to you, my internet friends. What I’m looking for is the name for a selection system I remember from my youth. There would be a collection of cards, with holes punched along the top. Some holes were complete; some were open at the top. If you wanted to select a subset of the cards, you would stick a wire (or wires) through the appropriate selection holes and lift. Only the cards that had complete holes for any of the wires would be lifted out of the set (if you wanted the “and”, you would do multiple passes of lifts from an ever increasing subset).

I can picture the thing in my mind, but I can’t remember what it was called. Do you have any ideas?

ETA: Doing a bit more searching, I found two articles: here and here, that led me to a possible name: edge-notched cards, also known as McBee cards… which led to a good explanation here.

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Converting Video Formats

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

My daughter has a 4 minute video she took, which is a 104MB .MOV file. She would like to upload it to something like (you know where), but it’s above her limit, probably due to the format its in. I’ve never worked with Video. Can someone tell us how to do this (either change format or shrink the file), and then how to upload? We can arrange to FTP the file somewhere, if that helps.

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Creating Memorial DVDs: Resource Request

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I just had a friend call me. One of her friends just lost her brother. This friend of hers would like to create a memorial website and DVD. Now the website itself is pretty simple, but I’m not sure how one would create the DVD, or how it would be duplicated in the quantity that is likely necessary.

So, do any of the folks reading this (especially if you are in the LA area) have any ideas? If your journal isn’t up yet, and so you’re reading this vicariously somehow, feel free to leave your answer anonymously, and just sign your name at the end of the post.

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