Word to HTML and HTML to Word Conversions

9 Mar 20232 minutes to read

The Essential DocIO converts the HTML file into a Word document and vice versa. You can also convert the Word document (DOCX, DOTX, DOCM, and DOTM) into HTML format.

In the Word library (DocIO) we use the XmlReader for parsing the content from input HTML. So, the input HTML should meet the XML standard (have proper open and close tags), even if you specify the XHTMLValidationType parameter as XHTMLValidationType.None.

XHTML Validation

Every HTML content is validated against a Document Type Declaration (DTD) which is a set of mark-up declarations that define a document type for a SGML-family mark-up language (GML, SGML, XML, HTML).

XHTML validation types

The following XHTML validation types are supported in Essential DocIO while importing an HTML content.

XHTML validation types Description
XHTMLValidationType.None It does not perform any schema validation but the given HTML content should meet the XHTML 1.0 format.
XHTMLValidationType.Transitional It allows several attributes within the tags.
XHTMLValidationType.Strict It does not allow the attributes inside the tag.

The following code example shows how to convert the HTML file into a Word document.

//Load the HTML document against the validation type none.
WordDocument document = new WordDocument("Input.html", FormatType.Html);
document.setXHTMLValidateOption(XHTMLValidationType.None);
//Save the Word document.
document.save("HTMLtoWord.docx", FormatType.Docx);
//Close the document.
document.close();

The following code example shows how to convert the Word document into HTML.

//Load the template document.
WordDocument document = new WordDocument("Template.docx", FormatType.Docx);
//Saves the document as an Html file.
document.save("WordToHtml.html", FormatType.Html);
//Close the document. 
document.close();

Supported and unsupported items

The following document elements and attributes are supported by DocIO in Word to HTML and HTML to Word conversions.

Document Element Attribute Support Status Notes
Bookmark

 Id

 Yes

 -
Border



 Color

 Yes

 -


Distance from text

 Yes

 -


Line style

 Partial

 Some line styles are rendered as solid.


Line width

 Yes

 -
Document Properties

Yes

 -
Field

Yes

 -
Footnotes and Endnotes

No

 -
Form Field

 Text input, Checkbox and combo box

 Yes

 -
Header / Footer

 Different per section

 Partial

 Only odd header of the first section is preserved in HTML export.
Hyperlink

 External URL

 Yes

 -


Local

 Yes

 -
Image

 Inline

 Yes

 -


Scale

 Yes

 -
List

 Custom bullets

 Yes

 -


Multi-level

 Yes

 -


Numbered

 Yes

 -


Restart numbering

 Yes

 -


Standard bullets

 Yes

 -
Comment

No

Symbols

Yes

Paragraph

 Alignment

 Yes



Borders

 Yes

 See Borders, for more details.


Keep lines and paragraphs together

 Yes

 -


Paragraph Indents

 Yes

 -


Line spacing

 Yes

 -


Page break before

 Yes

 -


Shading

 Yes

 See Shading, for more details.


Spacing before and after

 Yes

 -
Shading



 Background color

 Partial

 Solid background colors are supported.


Foreground color

 Partial

 Solid foreground color is used when background color is auto.
Styles



 Paragraph styles

 Yes

 -


Character styles

 Yes

 -


List styles

 Yes

 -
Table



 Alignment

 Yes

 -


Cell margins

 Yes

 -


Column widths

 Yes

 -


Indent from left

 Yes

 -


Preferred width

 Yes

 -


Spacing between cells

 Yes

 -


Borders

 Partial

 See Borders, for more details.


Shading

 Partial

 See Shading, for more details.
Nested Table

Yes

Table Cell



 Borders

 Partial

 See Borders, for more details.


Cell margins

 Yes

 -


Horizontal merge

 Yes

 -


Shading

 Partial

 See Shading, for more details.


Vertical alignment

 Yes

 -


Vertical merge

 Yes

 -
Table Row

 Height

 Yes

 -


Padding

 Yes

 -
Text



 All caps

 Yes

 -


Bold

 Yes

 -


Character spacing

 Yes

 -


Color

 Yes

 -


Emboss

 Partial

 Rendered as bold.


Engrave

 Partial

 Rendered as bold.


Font

 Yes

 -


Hidden

 Yes

 -


Highlighting

 Yes

 -


Imprint

 Partial

 Rendered as bold.


Italic

 Yes

 -


Line breaks

 Yes

 -


Outline

 Partial

 Rendered as bold.


Page breaks

 Yes

 -


Shading

 Partial

 See Shading, for more details.


Small caps

 Yes

 -


Special symbols

 Yes

 -


Strike out

 Yes

 -


Subscript / Superscript

 Yes

 -


Underline

 Partial

 Underline types and colors are ignored.