Upcast: Document conversion

Upcast is a simple program that does one task. It converts rtf files and Word documents to XML and XHTML. The most basic version of the software converts one file at a time. You can select several XML outputs, a style sheet based XHTML which preserves the visual style of the document or a more compact XHTML which is based on the structure of the original document.

What makes this software worthwhile is that the output is good clean XML/XHTML. I've converted a few large Word files and had either no or at most two small validation errors in the XHTML it produces. The validation errors only occured on fairly large Word documents that had a number of oddities in them (and the company would like copies of any such documents so they can improve their software). Having tried to create HTML from Word using several different methods, I am very impressed by how much easier and cleaner this is.

The software is a Java application, easy to download and install. If you don't have a recent Java VM on your computer, you'll need to download the version that includes Java. It works on PC and Macintosh, but a Mac will only be able to convert from rtf files, not Word documents.

If your organisation needs to convert documents for web or to XML, this utility is a must. An advantage for staff is that they need not learn a different word processing program, they can continue to use familiar tools. The disadvantage is that the utility must base structure on the structure of the original document. This means that if someone is in the habit of changing font size and not using headers, the resultant document will have the same problems.

Download the utility from Infinity-loop and see it for yourself.