Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

According to open office help I can convert a text document to HTML. When I follow the instructions I get the message 'can't create html document'
Can't find any more about it in 'help' Running open office 4.1.5 on windows 10 64bit.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

Are you using File | Save As and choosing HTML document as the file type? If not, what are the instructions you are following?

I clicked the Index tab in Writer Help and searched for HTML. The instructions "creating from text documents" are under "HTML documents". Following those instructions, I opened a plain text file which opened in Writer with the "Preformatted Text" paragraph style applied to the text. I applied the Heading 1 paragraph style to a couple of paragraphs in the document, then selected File > Send > Create HTML document and it worked for me. An Internet search for "cant create html document" and "openoffice" only returns one hit which isn't helpful and I can't find anything in bugzilla about the problem.

David, I followed the same instructions as Bill tried. Only I'd built up a document with boxed text and images and formatted different parts of the text. I'll have to test a new page using standard text and see what happens. Will let you know. Thanks both of you for your interest.

Found another way. Click new document, get an option to create an HTML page. Doh!! Now just have to solve an anchoring problem. On re-opening most of the pics are piled in a heap. Thought they were all set anchor to page. Have to check.

The general view is that OpenOffice does not generate good HTML code. The usual advice is that one should use a dedicated HTML editor rather than use OO as a HTML code generator.

corystes wrote:Found another way. Click new document, get an option to create an HTML page.

This does not do the same thing that the instructions in Help do. This creates only one HTML page with all the content on that page. The instructions in Help produces one HTML page for each Heading 1 paragraph plus one HTML page that has only the Headings which are links that open the other HTML pages.

Rory & Bill
Thanks for the info. Lot of learning to do here obviously.

You can export a Writer file to xhtml, provided - I think - that Java is enabled. That worked rather well the few times I toyed with it. The HTML editor in OpenOffice still supports HTML 4 at best, so it's really a kind of Stone Age artefact.

Exporting XHTML with OpenOffice on a Windows box requires that you explicitly select the XHTML filter during installation and a 32-bit Java runtime.
Rerun the installer and choose the option to repair or modify the existing installation.
Install a 32-bit Java from http://openjdk.java.net/ or from Java.com (Oracle)
And yes, using styles is mandatory.

Villeroy,
thanks for your information. Unfortunately I can';t get a repair option on the installer. I tried uninstalling/re-installing but couldn't get any option on filters - let alone XHTML filters. I have though, got java installed. Nothing I've tried has let me get an unscrambled HTML page.

Install LibreOffice where the XHTL filters are installed by default.

OpenOffice and its derivatives has never been a good HTML editor.
Use another dedicated product like BlueGriffon.

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. Have managed to recover a copy of Serif pageplus I used to have. This certainly seems more stable than the open/libre offices have been.

corystes wrote:Villeroy,
thanks for your information. Unfortunately I can';t get a repair option on the installer. I tried uninstalling/re-installing but couldn't get any option on filters - let alone XHTML filters. I have though, got java installed. Nothing I've tried has let me get an unscrambled HTML page.

If I recall correctly, "repair" re-installs with the same options so that wouldn't work. According to other posts I've seen about the same problem, the option you should be looking for is "Optional Components > XSLT Sample Filters". I believe you have to choose a Custom Installation to see the optional components. I don't use Windows, so I can't verify any of this.