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Microsoft Word Export is not working? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hello,

I've just downloaded trial version and start testing the Pro feature - export to Microsoft Word. As it stated in manual:

Quote:
Microsoft Word document (Pro)
Exports your beautifully-crafted OmniOutliner file into a .docx file that you can open in Microsoft Word. This is an OmniOutliner 4 Pro-only option.
But the results are a little bit different (please check the screenshot). Main pain points are:

1. Only first column is exported. Other columns 2, 3, ... are ignored.
2. Styles. Document in Microsoft Word has some styles, but it is not a styles from Outliner.

Can you please check?
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The Docx export is not trying to be a exact replica of your outline in Word. It is for moving an outline to Word when you're ready to move on to a word processor.

It only exports the first column because Word doesn't have columns. It could use a table but that would need to be a different exporter and should really fall into the domain of Excel.

If you switch to the outline view in Word, you will see the same outline hierarchy is preserved. Any notes in OmniOutliner will be styled as regular body text, with possible styling if some where set.

Styles are preserved as best as they can be. In your screenshot the background color doesn't match because Word only allows 16 "highlight" colors. There's some updates to this conversion coming in the next update, but orange isn't an option.

Row numbering may not match exactly either due to how drastically different Word stores this information.

There could certainly be other bugs in the export so feel free to ask about anything, but aside from the text not being white that should be, there's not much else that should be different that I'm seeing immediately.

Hope this helps.
 
In my first export from OO4 to Word I noticed that the labeling did not export correctly. It went 1. A. 1.2. etc., II. A. 1.2. in OO4 to I. A. 1.2., II. B.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffreyfort View Post
In my first export from OO4 to Word I noticed that the labeling did not export correctly. It went 1. A. 1.2. etc., II. A. 1.2. in OO4 to I. A. 1.2., II. B.
Sorry, that's what I was referring to by row numbering in my above post. Unless the whole document uses the same numbering structure it isn't currently possible to make these match.
 
Then Word support is VERY limited. My first attempt to use this is with an outline containing 3 columns, so Word export is worthless. Is there another method to get this into a format that non OO users can utilize? A table would be great, as would an Excel option. I tried RTF then to Word, but that came out quite ugly.
 
I am testing out OO4 and I too was expecting very different results from the Word Export feature. After reading this thread I now understand that OO exports should be opened in the 'outliner' view of word - DerekM is right, the hierarchy is preserved there.

However, my intention for importing to word is not to import as a word 'outline' but as a bulleted list that preserves the hierarchy that I have in OO.

See attached screenshots: The first shows the hierarchy in OO, the second shows what I would expect the exported version to look like in word (as a bulleted list in the print layout view), the third shows how the export actually looks if you are not in 'outline' view.

My questions are:
1) Am I doing something wrong and OO actually CAN export as a bulleted list?
2) If OO can't do this and only exports as a Word 'outline' - can we expect an update to enable this functionality?

To be honest, whether I purchase OO4 depends upon whether or not I can export as a bulleted list. My intention is to create outlines in OO4, and export so I can share as bulleted lists with my colleagues, and to save as bulleted notes in Evernote.

Thanks for your help!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cbeaudj View Post
My questions are:
1) Am I doing something wrong and OO actually CAN export as a bulleted list?
2) If OO can't do this and only exports as a Word 'outline' - can we expect an update to enable this functionality?

To be honest, whether I purchase OO4 depends upon whether or not I can export as a bulleted list. My intention is to create outlines in OO4, and export so I can share as bulleted lists with my colleagues, and to save as bulleted notes in Evernote.
This is not the intent the docx export but you can get the bulleted list you want already. There's a couple options.

Using RTF:
- Open the OmniOutliner prefs to the RTF Export tab
- Clear out the fields in the Bullets section (or alternatively hide handles for the whole document)
- Export to RTF, or select all and copy
- Open the RTF in Word or paste
- Select everything, and turn on bullets

Using HTML unordered list:
- Install our export plug-in package
- Export as HTML (Unordered List)
- Open that in Word
However, this does not preserve any styles

A Word export that uses the bulleted list format would need to be a completely separate exporter. I will file your request for this format. Thanks!

*Edit*

Or, if you don't need the actual Word bullet format, you can just use the RTF export with bullets.
 
I think the key problem here is that Word is a pretty terrible one-column outliner. The features and styling that OO supports simply don't exist there, and so ANY export is limited.

If OO put columns in tables, then it's not an outline. It could be improved for sure, but I never expect Word to do this sort of thing well at all.
 
Great, thank you DerekM - both of these work great! The RTF option works really well with Word, its easy to copy and paste directly into a Word document. The HTML unordered list export works better with Evernote, which I believe uses HTML formatting (?).

I agree bradpdx, exporting will be a problem with multiple columns. In my case I'm just taking quick notes at meetings, one column only - but if things get any more complicated I imagine it will be difficult to export to Word.

Thanks again for your help!
 
 


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