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Hi,

I have searched the forums to no avail. I work from multiple sources which I input into OmniFocus, one area I have is, meetings minuted with actions assigned to me in Microsoft word. Does an easy way exist to transfer actions from MS Word (for mac) into OmniFocus without having to retype them manually or cut and paste..?

Cheers Paul.
 
Probably your best bet is to try and massage the word file into a form that you can export as .csv or tab delimited text (see e.g., convert text to table command). From there, if you have omni outliner, I think you can probably import the .csv or text file into there, and then import the OO doc into OF.

Or perhaps OO will let you import a word file directly. Not sure.

Not the most elegant solution. But if you have to do this a lot it is probably more efficient than typing.

KS
 
What are you expecting to be easier than copy and paste? If you have lines of text, select them all as a group, click on the row handle of an action where you want to paste them, and paste away. So long as you have clicked on the row handle (NOT in the text of the row), you'll get an action for each line in the contents of the clipboard.

Here's my list of action items, in Microsoft Word (actually opened in TextEdit, but this works identically in Word, I just don't have a copy on this machine):


Inbox, ready to accept a multiple-row paste:



The result:



One mouse click-drag + cmd-C or right-Copy to get the selection, cmd-tab to switch to OF, click the Add Action button, a click to select the row handle, cmd-V or right-Paste to paste. Not much effort for potentially hundreds of actions!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
One mouse click-drag + cmd-C or right-Copy to get the selection, cmd-tab to switch to OF, click the Add Action button, a click to select the row handle, cmd-V or right-Paste to paste. Not much effort for potentially hundreds of actions!
True, but one may be picking out a set of specific (and non-contiguous) paragraphs. (Typical of minutes where different actions are assigned to different colleagues).

I place my cursor anywhere in an MS Word para (usually without extending the selection) and hit a shortcut key to run the Applescript below.

It places the whole paragraph text in the OF Quick Entry panel, which pops up.

(If the MS Word selection is extended, it grabs the selected text, rather than the para containing the cursor).

The applescript is saved with a mnemonic name in the Word Script Menu Items folder, and I assign a keystroke (Ctrl O in my case) through:

System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Keyboard Shortcuts > Microsoft Word.app

The Applescript text is:
Code:
tell application "Microsoft Word"
	tell selection
		if selection start is not selection end then
			-- OK, selection already extended 
		else -- select para containing cursor
			extend
			extend
			extend
		end if
		
		set strText to content of text object
		set extend mode to false
	end tell
end tell

tell application id "com.omnigroup.OmniFocus"
	tell quick entry of default document
		set oNewTask to make new inbox task with properties {name:strText}
		select {oNewTask}
		open
	end tell
end tell

Last edited by RobTrew; 2010-03-05 at 01:24 AM.. Reason: Simplified code
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobTrew View Post
True, but one may be picking out a set of specific (and non-contiguous) paragraphs. (Typical of minutes where different actions are assigned to different colleagues).
Cmd-click-drag will let you select non-contiguous chunks of text even in my ancient copy of Word X...
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
Cmd-click-drag will let you select non-contiguous chunks of text
Sure.

Just an attention-management preference for me - I prefer to focus on the document, and minimize mouse-fiddling and selection-extensions.

Easier for me to read through the text, point to a paragraph whenever it is relevant, and hit a single key-stroke.

The candle-flame of human attention is fairly small (certainly in my case :-) and I prefer to protect it from the breeze ...
 
Understood, believe me! My alternative viewpoint is that I'd rather get all the stuff tossed into my Inbox before I get distracted, which might happen if I get the opportunity to start assigning projects/contexts/dates in the quick entry box for each action item processed. I'm less worried about getting distracted from the task at hand once I've gotten the actions into OmniFocus, whereas if the phone rings or someone steps in when I've gotten 7 of 8 done, the chances that I might fail to remember half an hour later that I hadn't gotten all the way down the list would be pretty high.

It's good to have options tailored to one's weaknesses :)
 
 


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