Last update 29 Sep 1996 by Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>.
Software tested under MacOS: RTFtoHTML version 3.0.1, Microsoft Internet Assistant converters version 2.0, MacLinkPlus version 8.1.
For conversion from Word to HTML, Microsoft Internet Assistant was more automatic and more manipulative, but RTFtoHTML was better at handling table of content and footnotes and if you prefer a less manipulative conversion tool.
For conversion from HTML to Word Microsoft Internet Assistant was better if you
want to produce a HTML document and alternately handle it in Word and HTML
formats, while DataViz MacLinkPlus was better if you want to make a one-time
conversion of an arbitrary HTML document into a Word document.
This document reports tests of tools for conversion between Microsoft Word-formatted documents and HTML documents on a Macintosh. None of the tools were perfect, there will surely be better versions of both products in the future.
For conversions from Word to HTML, two tools were tested: RTFtoHTML version 3.0.1 (RTH) and Microsoft Internet Assistant version 2.0 (MIA).
General comment: MIA uses more advanced HTML features in sometimes rather funny ways, which sometimes might give more likeness between the display of the printed Word document and the HTML document, but which may be a problem if you want to manually improve the HTML document afterwards. MIA uses for example FONT SIZE attributes to try to get the same font size in HTML as in the Word document, and FACE attributes to get the same font in HTML as in the Word document.
Advantages with RTH as compared to MIA: Automatic generation of table of contents, Good handling of footnotes, better handling of manual lists, faster execution time.
Advantages with MIA as compared to RTH: More automatic translation of images, MIA had a bug in its handling of centered text, better handling of word-6-style automatic lists.
Note: RTH also supports conversion to HTML from other word processor formats
than Microsoft Word.
For conversions from HTML to Word, two tools were tested: MacLinkPlus translators from DataViz version 8.10 (MLP) and Microsoft Internet Assistant version 2.0 (MIA).
General comment: None of the tools were perfect. All of them require some manual after-editing of the Word document to give it an acceptable format. For example, HTML uses automatic table autoformat, while Word has semiautomatic autofit command which also does not work as well as the built-in autoformat in Web browsers. Because of this, tables have to be autoformatted when they are translated from HTML to Word, and none of the tested translators did this in a good way.
Advantages with MLP: Better handling of headings, fonts, bold text, forms, etc.
Advantages with MIA: A little better handling of tables, but not perfect.
MLP was clearly much better than MIA for editing of arbitrary HTML documents.
MIA, however, has a different goal than MLP. The goal of MLP is to translate HTML documents into Word documents, which, when printed, will look as much as possible like the original HTML document. The goal of MIA is to transform Word into a HTML editor, i.e. to allow you to use Word to produce HTML documents, which you can print both as Word and HTML documents and where you can edit the HTML and save it again. Thus, MIA translates for example form elements into elements editable with Microsoft Internet Assistant into modified form elements, while MLP translates form elements into graphics depicting the form element in printable format.
Thus, if you start editing a HTML document using MIA and the HTML template,
then you get documents which you can edit and print with Word and save as HTML.
None of the tools are yet good enough to allow a document to be
automatically moved back and forward between Word and HTML. All of them can be
used with more or less manual after-editing of the results. For conversion from
Word to HTML, none of the tested translators are best. Microsoft Internet
Assistant is somewhat more automatic, but a big advantage with RTFtoHTML is
its automatic creation of table of contents and intelligent handling of
footnotes. For conversion from HTML to Word, MacLinkPlus was clearly better
than Microsoft Internet Assistant. Microsoft Internet Assistant was, however,
better for conversion of HTML to Word documents which you can edit in Word and
then save again as revised HTML documents.
All tests were performed on a Macintosh. They may not apply to versions on other platforms.
RTFtoHTML version 3.0.1
Microsoft Internet Assistant converters version 2.0.
MacLinkPlus version 8.1
Netscape 3.0
A kinder, Gentler Validator including weblint at URL http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~gerald/validate/
Manual inspection of generated HTML code
5 Very good
4 Good
3 Acceptable
2 Questionable
1 Bad
Function
|
Microsoft
Word Internet Assistant 8.1
|
RTFtoHTML
3.0.1
| ||
| Report
|
score
|
Report
|
score
| |
| Price
|
Free
|
5
|
Shareware
US $ 29
|
5
|
| Swedish
national characters
|
OK
|
5
|
OK
|
5
|
| Creates
<!DOCTYPE element
|
No
|
3
|
No
|
3
|
| Must
save in RTF format before conversion
|
No
|
5
|
Yes
|
4
|
| Graphics
files generated
|
Yes,
in GIF format
|
5
|
Yes,
in PICT format , must be manually converted to GIF
|
4
|
| Handling
of headings
|
Heading
1-3 correct, Headings 4-6 simulated
|
4
|
All
headers correct
|
5
|
| Preformatted
text
|
Sets
FONT SIZE=2 to allow longer lines
|
5
|
Correct
|
4
|
| Centered
header
|
Correct
|
5
|
No,
instead text which was not to be centered became centered
|
1
|
| Automatic
generation of table of contents
|
No
|
3
|
Yes
|
5
|
| Blockquote
|
Sets
FONT SIZE=2
|
3
|
OK
|
5
|
| Horizontal
ruler
|
OK
|
5
|
OK
|
5
|
| Microsoft
Word Frames
|
Not
handled
|
3
|
Not
handled
|
3
|
| Tables
with and without borders
|
OK,
uses WIDTH to get neater printout
|
5
|
OK
|
4
|
| Manual
numbered lists
|
No
|
4
|
Yes
|
5
|
| Word
6 type automatic numbered lists
|
Yes
|
5
|
No
|
3
|
| Manual
bullet lists
|
No
|
4
|
Yes
|
5
|
| Menu,
Glossary, Directory styles
|
Yes
|
5
|
Yes
|
5
|
| HTML
syntax validation
|
Uses
many non-standard but widely supported tags. Should not be any problem.
|
4
|
Uses
some non-standard but widely supported tags. Funny mixing of tags in some cases
(example: </b><table></b>). Probably no big problem in real
usage.
|
3
|
Note: The comparison below was based on HTML documents which were not originally produced using Microsoft Word Internet Assistant. Microsoft Word Internet Assistant was much better at translating back to Word HTML documents it had originally produced itself using the Word HTML template.
Function
|
Microsoft
Word Internet Assistant 8.1
|
MacLinkPlus
8.1
| ||
| Report
|
score
|
Report
|
score
| |
| Price
|
Free
|
5
|
US $ 69.99
|
|
| Headings
|
Incorrect
|
2
|
Good
|
5
|
| Horizontal
ruler
|
No
|
2
|
Good
|
5
|
| Pictures
|
Good
|
5
|
Works
for pictures in URL-s to be retrieved from the net, not for relative file URLs
|
4
|
| Tables
|
Minor
imperfections
|
3
|
Minor
imperfections
|
3
|
| Table
borders of different thickness
|
Too
much
|
3
|
Sometimes
|
3
|
| HTML
forms
|
Incomplete
rendering
|
2
|
Good
|
5
|
| Preformatted
text
|
Incorrectly
coded as Times font
|
1
|
Correctly
coded as courier font
|
5
|
| Merged
cells in tables
|
No
|
2
|
No
|
2
|
| Borders
in tables
|
Yes
|
5
|
Sometimes
|
3
|
| Centered
text in tables
|
Yes
|
5
|
No
|
3
|
| Bold
text (/b)
|
No
|
2
|
Yes
|
5
|
RTFtoHTML has problems with long file names.
Microsoft Word Internet Assistant has problems if you have redefined the names of the Microsoft Word Menus (which I have done, in order to get place for a Font menu in order to get PopChar to work with Word).