Thoughts on publishing onto blogs based on WordPress

 

For the past few days, I have been searching for alternatives to publish documents directly onto WordPress, it’s just because Microsoft Word removed the support for blog posts.

I have come up with different approaches, they all have some pitfalls.

Option 1 – using Python script, such as mammoth to convert docx into HTML.

  • Pros – easy to code and integrate with the xmlrpc process, to publish directly to wordpress.
  • Cons – Only preserves the minimal formatting, all the colored font, table borders are missing.
  • Conclusion – No.

Option 2 – using Java or other tools, such as libreoffice to convert docx to HTML

  • Pros – I can have a Python wrapper to call the process, so essentially it’s the same as calling mammoth.
  • Cons – need to install libreoffice which is huge. Or to set up a Java environment, which is also tedious
  • Conclusion – No.

Option 3 – convert the doc into HTML with MS Word or Google docs

  • Pros – No development required, it preserves most of the formatting.
  • Cons – different behavior with MS Word and Google Docs, it seems word press adopts Google Docs output better.
  • Conclusion – This is one way to go now.

Option 4 – using Javascript and existing tools, such as https://wordtohtml.net/

  • Pros – There are tons of WYSIWYG tools on the market, using it to convert the docx into HTML, and publish to the wordpress
  • Cons – I have to manually copy and paste the HTML into wordpress portal, and Publish
  • Conclusion – this is another option to go now.

Future enhancement consideration

I can have a portal, and plug in the JavaScript to the portal.

There should be a button on the portal, once the conversion is done, I can just click the button to send the HTML to backend, the Python script in option 1 should be able to publish that to the WordPress website.

 

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