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Creating Topics by Importing Word Documents

Use the following steps to create new topics by importing Word documents.

How to create topics by importing Word documents

Make sure the Project Organizer is open. By default, the Project Organizer is located on the left side of the interface in an accordion structure with the Content Explorer, unless you have previously moved it and saved the new layout. You may have to click the Project Organizer bar to bring it into view.
Do one of the following:
If you have not imported Word documents previously:
1. Right-click the Imports folder.
2. From the context menu, select Add MS Word Import File.
  (Alternatively, you can also select Project>Import File>Add MS Word Import File.)
3. Complete the options in the Add MS Word Import dialog and click Add.
  The new FLIMP file is added to the Imports subfolder in the Project Organizer and opens in the Word Import Editor to the right, with several tabs shown.
If you have imported Word documents previously and want to import more Word documents (to be included with this "batch"):
1. Click the plus button next to the Imports subfolder.
2. Double-click the appropriate FLIMP file (which is named after the Word document that was at the top of the previous import).
  The file opens in the Word Import Editor to the right, with several tabs shown.
In the Source Files tab, click the Add Files button to find and select Word documents on your computer to include in the import. You can select DOC, DOCX, or RTF files.

Note: DOCX is Microsoft Word's platform-independent, open XML format. You must have Microsoft Word 2007 installed in order to import this file type.
You can use the various options in the Source Files tab as necessary.
- Open File This opens the Word document that is selected in the list.
- Link Generated Files To Source Files This creates a connection between the original Word documents and the files that are created as a result of the import. This is useful if you want to continue editing the content in the original Word documents, instead of editing in the Flare project. Flare recognizes when changes have been made to the source documents and reminds you to re-import the documents to ensure the Flare project also reflects the changes.
  
  If you use this option, a link icon is added to the top of a linked file in the Flare interface. This lets you know that you need to edit the source file, rather than editing this file. If you remove the connection to the source file, this icon no longer displays on the file. Please note that if you have bound the project to source control, the icons used for source control take precedence over the link icon.
- Move Up This moves the selected document higher in the list (if you have more than one document to import). The document at the top is used for the name of the content folder holding the imported topics in Flare. Also, the order determines how the imported documents are arranged in the Flare TOC that is created as a result.
- Move Down This moves the selected document lower in the list (if you have more than one document to import).
- Remove This removes the selected document(s) from the list.
If you want Flare to split the Word documents into smaller topics based on any of the styles shown on the left side of the page ("Used Word Styles"), click the New Topic Styles tab and double-click that style to move it to the right side of the page ("New Topic Styles").

example

If you have a style called "Heading 2" in your Word documents, you might want new topics to be created whenever Flare finds a Heading 2 style in a document. So you would double-click Heading 2 and move it to the right side of the page.
If you want Flare to split long topics into smaller ones (based on the number of characters in a topic) or re-import updated source documents automatically, click the Options tab and use the fields on it. You can also set the format of the links that connect the topics that are split.
- Add "Topic Continued" links when appropriate Select this option if you want a link called "Topic Continued" to be placed at the bottom of pages when a long topic has been split into multiple topics.
- Add "Topic Continued From" links when appropriate Select this option if you want a link called "Topic Continued From" to be placed at the top of continued pages when a long topic has been split into multiple ones.
- Cross-Reference Format Use this field to specify the format for the "Topic Continued" and "Topic Continued From" links. Flare provides a cross-reference format for you—(continued in {title}) or (continued from {title}). With this cross-reference format, the link contains the words "continued in" or "continued from" within parentheses, followed by the text of the first paragraph in the connected topic. If you do not want the link to use that particular text, you have a couple of options. First, in Flare, you could manually enter a heading in each topic that is connected to another topic included in the split. That text will be used in the link instead (after you update the cross-references in Flare). Another option is to modify the format by clicking the Edit button. For more information see About Cross-References.
- Edit If you want to modify the cross-reference format provided, click this button, which opens the Cross-Reference Format dialog. See Editing Cross-Reference Style Formats.
- Split Long Topics Select this option if you have long sections in your source documents and want to make sure that they are converted to multiple topics (rather than one very long topic).
- Threshold Enter the maximum number of characters to be converted to a topic before a new topic is created. Flare will break the topic at the nearest paragraph to the threshold value. That way, a new topic will not start in the middle of a sentence or word, but at the beginning of a paragraph.
- Avoid Creating 'Empty' Topics Select this option if you want to ensure that new topics are not created when large sections are found in the Word documents without any content.
- Threshold Enter the maximum number of empty character spaces allowed in a topic. If this number is exceeded, Flare will not create a new topic from that empty space.
- Auto-reimport before 'Generate Output' This is also known as "Easy Sync." If you created a connection between your Word source files and the Flare project earlier in the wizard, you will likely make future content changes in the source files. When you make such changes, the source files need to be re-imported into the project so that they can be included in the output. You have the option of re-importing the files manually. However, you can also tell Flare to do this for you automatically, so that you do not have to. Select this option if you want Flare to automatically re-import Word files when you attempt to build output.
- Approximate Filename Length Enter the maximum number of characters to use for naming new topic files that are automatically created after splitting a long topic. The default is 24.
- Convert all tables to "Auto-Fit to Contents" Select this option if you want to automatically set tables to "Auto-Fit to Contents" when they are imported into Flare. This simply ensures that column widths are not specified on the imported tables.
- Convert Table Styles If you have tables in your FrameMaker documents that you have formatted in a certain way, select this check box if you want to create matching table styles as a result of the import. In the Flare project, the new table styles will be named after the format named applied to the table in FrameMaker (e.g., "Format_A.css," "Format_B.css," and so on). You can rename these table style sheets in Flare after the import finishes.
  Even if you do not use this mapping feature, the table formatting still comes across when you import the documents. The only difference is that table style sheets make it easier to maintain the formatting of your tables within Flare. See About Styles and Style Sheets.
Click the Stylesheet tab to specify whether the imported topics should be associated with a style sheet and/or styles from your Word files.
- Stylesheet If you already have a cascading style sheet (CSS) file that you want to associate with the imported files, click the Stylesheet button. Then navigate to the style sheet and select it.
- Preserve MS Word Styles This retains any styles from your Word documents so that you can continue to use them in your new project.
- Don't Preserve MS Word Styles This does not keep the styles that were used in the Word documents.
- Convert inline formatting to CSS styles This creates new styles based on any local formatting that exists in the Word documents.
Click the Paragraph Styles tab to map paragraph styles from the Word documents to Flare's paragraph styles, including those from the style sheet you may have selected. Your Word style will adopt the name of that style (e.g., if you map a style called "MyHeading" to <h1> style tag, the resulting style in the Flare project will be named "h1.MyHeading"). To map a style, click the style in the MS Word column on the left, click a style in the Flare Styles section on the far right, and then click the Map button.

The style is added to the Flare Style column. When you are finished importing the documents and the new Flare project is loaded, the content that had been associated with the style in the Word document will now be associated with a new style that you mapped it to.
Click the Character Styles tab to map character styles from the source documents to Flare's character styles, including those from the style sheet you may have selected. In this way, you can have your Word style take on the appearance of the Flare style that you map it to, and it will adopt the name of that style. To map a style, click the style in the MS Word Style column, click a style in the Flare Styles section, and then click the Map button.

The style is added to the Flare Style column. When you are finished importing the documents and the new Flare project is loaded, the content that had been associated with the style in the Word document will now be associated with a new style that has the appearance of the style that you mapped it to.

example

Let's say you have a style in your Word source documents called "EmphasisBlue" that displays the font in blue. During the process of importing your Word documents, let's say you map the EmphasisBlue style to the italic <i> character tag. After the import is finished, a new style called "i.EmphasisBlue" is created and applied to all content that had been associated with the EmphasisBlue style in the source documents. The content now displays in a blue, italic font in Flare.
After you have made the necessary changes, click Import at the top of the Word Import Editor.

The Accept Imported Documents dialog opens. The files that will be created as a result of the import are listed on the left. A preview of each file can be seen to the right when you click the file.
When you are finished previewing the files to be created, click Accept.

The new topics are added to the project.

Note: The Imported Files tab displays the files that were included in the most recent import from the source project.

Note: Flare supports Microsoft Word 2003 and newer versions.

Note: Flare tightly integrates with Microsoft Word (including the new MS Word 2007), using modern XML data flow techniques and leveraging the Microsoft XML Schema for Office documents. This allows for superior content fidelity during import.

Note: If you import Microsoft Word documents containing embedded pictures into a project, Flare places copies of those image files in subfolders within the Resources\Images folder. This is done in order to avoid naming conflicts with embedded images from other Word documents that you might import. The subfolders are named after the Word documents being imported.

Note: If you apply certain special effects or artwork (e.g., arrows) to images in Word and then import them into Flare, those effects will not be retained. For example, a rotated image will return to its straight, original state. However, there are some workarounds that may allow you to keep the effects or artwork. One solution is to apply another effect such as a shadow or 3-D to the image in Word (e.g., add a shadow to a rotated image that you want to keep). This forces Word to save the image as an entirely new image with the effects. Another possible solution is to save the Word document as a Web Page, manually copy that HTM file into the Flare folder, and then open it within Flare. As for text floating around images, this effect is not supported in Flare. When you import from Word, the text is added below the image.

Note: A link icon displays next to file names that are imported from and linked to another Flare project, Microsoft Word documents, Adobe FrameMaker documents, or DITA file content. However, if you are also using the built-in source control technology, the source control icons have a higher precedence and will therefore be displayed instead.