Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

[Shiperton Henethe]

Detagger is a good product. I use it myself. Note there's also a developer
edition with APIs if you want to incorporate it in your apps.

My main complaint about it is that I couldnt refind it
very easily when I'd forgotten it's name!!

I also think it's fractionally over priced at $20 USD.
I'd rather see it at $10 USD. And I'd rather see a 60 day
expiry time than 30 days, because I need it so rarely.
But when I need it I really need it!
Or maybe a completely voluntary $20...?

Also it didnt make it into tucows.com, apparently because
it doesnt *look* sexy enough.

But compared to anything else I could find in the time
available I found it totally intuitive and totally *EXCELLENT*.
And I am a very harsh critic!

All of which makes me dispare of tucows.com.
Can anyone recommend anthing better
than tucows.com?


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

 

[Toby A Inkster]

Can anyone recommend anthing better
than tucows.com?

http://www.sf.net/ ?

 

[Mark Parnell]

David.. you're a troll. Next time prove your ignorance by quoting the
misinformation I am posting.

You mean this?

He did quote it. Reread his post. He just didn't attribute it to you,
because Shiperton didn't attribute anything he quoted.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Shiperton,
Since you posted in an Excel newsgroup, I had assumed that you
would be willing to run your own VBA macros, but you are still
looking to generate all the code you don't want and then try
to strip it out afterwards.

As I understand your question, you are specifically interested in
converting an Excel worksheet into HTML. My macros are set
up to work from a selection but you can change them to whatever
you want on your own computer.

You looked at tidy http://tidy.sourceforge.net/
though what they gave you was a link to a zip file.
I use HTML-Kit which you will see as a link on the tidy webpage. It incorporates
Tidy and I am quite happy with it. But HTML-Kit is for
editing HTML code, and (PF9) checking it's syntax (using tidy). So I
doubt very much that tidy was what you are looking for as
you would have to provide it with your completed HTML code,
and it does not strip out Office code.

The Office 2000 HTML filter should work with the HTML output
from Excel 2002 just like it does with the HTML output from
Excel 2000. Basically it has nothing to do with Excel, you run
it afterwards. It is just going to eliminate the round-tripping code
(Excel --> HTML --> Word --> Access --> Excel --> Word ), it is
not going to eliminate the extra garbage to maintain fontsize,
cell widths etc that you do not want.

If you are into writing your own HTML, I would once more suggest
taking a look at my webpage on HTML conversion from Excel
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xl2html.htm

I have generated some sample HTML output from an Excel file
204 KB using Save As HTML from Excel, using the macros
at my site was 59 KB, you can check out the files yourself at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xl2html.htm#comparison

Instructions to install macro coding
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

The code is at
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/code/xl2htmlx.txt

I write my own HTML code and the macro to generate the tables
needed without gray row and column headings XL2HTML
or with the headings from macro XL2HTMLx
based on the current selection.

Most of the tables on my pages were generated with earlier versions of
the macro. I broke down and did add color, and alignment justifications,
which is a simple tradeoff compared to 3 to 10 times the amount from
Excel or Front Page.

The current Microsoft Office solution is to generate all the
horrendous code with all the round-tripping code and then
run the Office 2000 HTML Filter
to remove the round tripping code. But it is still going
to have the junk to make it look just like an Excel page,
overriding formatting that HTML generally does much better
left to it's own devices..

 

[David Venn-Brown]

You mean this?

Am I the only person who reads that as an admission that Karim is
posting misinformation?

He did quote it. Reread his post. He just didn't attribute it to you,
because Shiperton didn't attribute anything he quoted.

Yep. Like I said: "If he says something, the truth is probably the
opposite."

 

[Alexander Johannesen]

Really? Does the room stay warmer in the winter and cooler in the summber because you don't use IE? Do you get special discounts at the gas station?

No, but I *do* see happy customers during test-phases that realise that
the designs and pages I make looks perfect in *all* browsers. I *do* see
less pop-up ads. (In fact, I see none) I *do* see the lack of bloody
spyware that attaches themselves to the IE backbone. I *do* see an
increase in security, and the lack of needing to patch the browser
everytime I boot because some "Windows Update" tells me that there is
*yet* another _critical_ security issue with that piece of crap browser.
Oh, and I *do* see XHTML when application/xhtml+xml mimetype is used.
I *do* see an increase in productivity. I *do* see webpages much faster
than you. I *do* see people around me get impressed when I show them what
they are missing in their everyday surfing.

So there are many things around me that happens *because* I use this
browser, and they are all positive things.

have never seen anything around me affected when I use Netscape. Maybe I'm just not using the right browser.

And of course doing something about it is beyond you?

I'm missing something? Will I see the winnning lotto numbers before they're picked if I surf with Opera instead of IE? What features am I missing?

Well, for starters, it would be good to keep the allegories to something
that slightly resembles the topic we're discussing, like features of
the browsers, security issues, speed and maintainability of them, and
so forth. *Any* browser that I know of has all these things better
than IE, so I'm still puzzled as to why use IE at all.

I'm concerned with how sites look and what I can read and find online.

We all are.


Alexander

 

[William Tasso]

Am I the only person who reads that as an admission that Karim is
posting misinformation?

Shouldn't think so, the poster known as Karim is a well documented liar.

 

[Robert G. Eldridge]

I just add new columns with the HTML codes and save as a tab-separated text
file.

In other words, I add a new column 'A' and each cell in that column is
"<tr><td>". Skip one column, insert another that contains "</td><td>" on
each line and add another at the end... "</td></tr>". Save as a text file
and it's easy to work with.

I actually do this for one page I maintain as I find it convenient to
resort the data using Excel before updating the .html file when I've
appended more content to the Excel data.

I don't however bother to save as a text file as I simply select all
the data (including all the mark-up columns) and copy and then paste
between <table> and </table> in my text editor and then use replace
all to replace all the tab characters introduced with the paste from
Excel with nothing. You can safely do this to your .html file as it
shouldn't contain any existing tab characters.

 

[Haines Brown]

Maybe I'm missing something in this thread, but does it conflate two
different issues: a) with what browser should we check our pages, b)
what browser do we find most comfortable to use as a design
environment?

Everyone seems to agree that the page designer must test pages on
IE. However, that does not dictate the development environment, for
which some other browser may be preferred. I have used Opera and
then galeon (mozilla) for several reasons, one simple one being that I
don't normally run Windows.

If I've designed something under galeon that does not look good with
IE, I go back to make it look as good as I can with both, which would
have been my goal if I had developed under IE. Also, my concern is not
necessarily which browser happens to be most popular now, but which
sticks closest to standards, for that seems to be the best way to
design for future use, rather than to rely entirely on guessing
popularity trends.

 

[Karim]

Maybe I'm missing something in this thread, but does it conflate two
different issues: a) with what browser should we check our pages, b)
what browser do we find most comfortable to use as a design
environment?

Everyone seems to agree that the page designer must test pages on
IE. However, that does not dictate the development environment, for
which some other browser may be preferred. I have used Opera and
then galeon (mozilla) for several reasons, one simple one being that I
don't normally run Windows.

If I've designed something under galeon that does not look good with
IE, I go back to make it look as good as I can with both, which would
have been my goal if I had developed under IE. Also, my concern is not
necessarily which browser happens to be most popular now, but which
sticks closest to standards, for that seems to be the best way to
design for future use, rather than to rely entirely on guessing
popularity trends.

You should design your site so that it shows properly in the most popular
browser, IE, using html standards regardless which browser is closest to
the standards. You want to have your audience be able to enjoy your site.
Take the 5 most popular browsers and make your site look good under them.
If you have more time, test under more browsers.

If you used standards and it doesn't show properly under IE, you will need
to fix it. Your audience doesn't care if you used html standards. THey care
about having a good browsing experience.

 

[Shiperton Henethe]

summber because you don't use IE? Do you get special discounts at the gas
station?

No, but I *do* see happy customers during test-phases that realise that
the designs and pages I make looks perfect in *all* browsers. I *do* see
less pop-up ads. (In fact, I see none) I *do* see the lack of bloody
spyware that attaches themselves to the IE backbone. I *do* see an
increase in security, and the lack of needing to patch the browser
everytime I boot because some "Windows Update" tells me that there is
*yet* another _critical_ security issue with that piece of crap browser.
Oh, and I *do* see XHTML when application/xhtml+xml mimetype is used.
I *do* see an increase in productivity. I *do* see webpages much faster
than you. I *do* see people around me get impressed when I show them what
they are missing in their everyday surfing.

So there are many things around me that happens *because* I use this
browser, and they are all positive things.

I give up. What is your browser called?

Ship

 

[Shiperton Henethe]

You should design your site so that it shows properly in the most popular
browser, IE, using html standards regardless which browser is closest to
the standards. You want to have your audience be able to enjoy your site.
Take the 5 most popular browsers and make your site look good under them.
If you have more time, test under more browsers.

If you used standards and it doesn't show properly under IE, you will need
to fix it. Your audience doesn't care if you used html standards. THey care
about having a good browsing experience.

Personally, my solution is to use incredibly old-fashioned
minimal clever-ness HTML. I dont even use CSS.
I concede that maybe the time has come that I should
but I cant spare the time learn up on them!

....So I just use (shock horror) font tags.

I never use rowspan if I can avoid it, I avoid TD widths
I control width instead with stretched pixels
I dont use frames....
....and everything is *incredibly* basic HTML.
No clever b*stard stuff what-so-ever!

I test with MSIE and Netscape/Win2K and that seems to do us fine.
I've never heard of any problems with our site on
different browsers /platforms.

But you guys may feel differently
Here is one of my sites I'm involved with:
www.auction-air.com

Any comments?


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

 

[Shiperton Henethe]

http://www.sf.net/ ?

Detagger not there... so not looking good!

Ship

 

[Toby A Inkster]

I give up. What is your browser called?

I could guess quite easily, but if you need an extra clue, look at the
User-Agent header of his post.

 

[Shiperton Henethe]

The Office 2000 HTML filter should work with the HTML output
from Excel 2002 just like it does with the HTML output from
Excel 2000.

Should but doesnt!
It wont install on Office 2002
Thanks Bill Gates.

Basically it has nothing to do with Excel, you run
it afterwards. It is just going to eliminate the round-tripping code
(Excel --> HTML --> Word --> Access --> Excel --> Word ), it is
not going to eliminate the extra garbage to maintain fontsize,
cell widths etc that you do not want.

If you are into writing your own HTML, I would once more suggest
taking a look at my webpage on HTML conversion from Excel
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xl2html.htm

I have generated some sample HTML output from an Excel file
204 KB using Save As HTML from Excel, using the macros
at my site was 59 KB, you can check out the files yourself at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xl2html.htm#comparison

Instructions to install macro coding
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

The code is at
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/code/xl2htmlx.txt

I write my own HTML code and the macro to generate the tables
needed without gray row and column headings XL2HTML
or with the headings from macro XL2HTMLx
based on the current selection.

Most of the tables on my pages were generated with earlier versions of
the macro. I broke down and did add color, and alignment justifications,
which is a simple tradeoff compared to 3 to 10 times the amount from
Excel or Front Page.

The current Microsoft Office solution is to generate all the
horrendous code with all the round-tripping code and then
run the Office 2000 HTML Filter
to remove the round tripping code. But it is still going
to have the junk to make it look just like an Excel page,
overriding formatting that HTML generally does much better
left to it's own devices..

Thanks for all that.
However
a) The Office 2000 HTML Filter wouldn install with Office 2002

b) Eventually I managed to re-find "DETAGGER", from jafsoft.com
I think, which seems to strip out almost all the MS crud admirably.
$20 USD is at the upper limit of what I'm prepared to pay
for a Microsoft drop-off (scam?)

Ship

 

[Toby A Inkster]

www.auction-air.com

Tested in two different browsers.

In Dillo 0.7.3 (the lastest release, AFAIK) the site mainly displays well,
although there are one or two random white gaps that I think aren't
supposed to be there.

In Lynx 2.8.5dev.12 the site is practically unusable.

 

[Adrienne]

summber because you don't use IE? Do you get special discounts at the
gas station?

I give up. What is your browser called?

Ship

Opera - http://www.opera.com

 

[Alexander Johannesen]

I give up. What is your browser called?

No, don't give up; I was enjoying this. Besides, *any* non-IE
browser is worth switching to, although my favorite is the latest
7.10+ Opera browsers. But again, I'm biased.


Alexander

 

[Bart Lateur]

I downloaded something called tidy.exe, and when I ran
it all I got was a big black box. With a flashing cursor
in it...

That's a command line utility you have there... (AKA a "DOS program")

There are several GUI frontends available to it. The other poster
pointed towards TidyUI.

<http://users.rcn.com/creitzel/tidy.html#tidyui>

 

[Bart Lateur]

A check of recent logs of 9,980,199 requests reveals 0.92% of those
requests for pages from The Probert Encyclopaedia were made by
browsers purporting to be "Opera". 2.62% by "Netscape" and 90.58% by
"MSIE"

Alone these statistics don't prove anything, the requests include
requests for images, but if anyone else has sizeable figures they may
help to illustrate a browser usage trend.

Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be
MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
did.

So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.