Making a formal outline in Blocs? -- SOLVED

@Pealco Here is your code with all outline text in red side-by-side with the resulting outline in Blocs.

I agree that it’s a good work around, but I would still like to see how it could be done in Blocs, using the appropriate bric and perhaps customization as I mentioned in my original post.

Copying and pasting all of my outlines into the template like you’ve shown would be too tedious. They are about 10x longer than the example above, and contain one more level in some cases. There are about 25 of them, and I might have more jobs like this too.

I could imagine generating the html using VBA.

But I keep thinking there must be an easier way. Am I missing something simple?

Thanks again.

In about an hour I will try to make a video only working in blocs…is ok for you?

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I can’t wait to see this :smile:

LOL @KBConcepts,

Well I make my best, then you can make fun of my way…

VIDEO BLOCS ONLY

LINK to a HTML editor so you just copy your content, makes the changes and then you copy the HTML code and copy to a HTML bric.

Don’t know more… sorry… but someone can help more probably @Eldar

Thanks, @Pealco :grinning: That was really cool of you to make that video.
It’s still a time consuming way of doing it in Blocs 3. We’re sure hoping in the future @Norm will make this so much easier.
Now, this was not only a helpful website but funny.

Thanks @KBConcepts,

I like to help. And yes it is difficult to do that in blocs.

I think that the best way of doing that for now is with <ol> and <li>

About the site I never had seen that image from the website. :rofl:

But it’s good, I use it a lot to solve some formatting problems.

@Pealco I really appreciate all the help you’ve provided. Based on your approach, I’ve come up with a workflow that I’d like your comment on:

  1. I save my original Word doc (containing the long formal outline) as .htm
  2. double click to open the .htm file in Chrome browser
  3. right click to view page source, and copy the html
  4. paste into a Blocs code bric

Although the online html editor you recommended worked great, and I love it’s ability to produce simple html, it has 2 problems for me: 1) after a few uses it requires a subscription, 2) I prefer to stay away from tools which may change in the future.

Item (2) is quite important to me because I’ve been around a while and seen a lot of things come and go. I hate the ugly html that Word produces, but I can just close my eyes and copy/paste it without too much pain. The result is beautiful and Word is a tool that will always be around.

Any comments?

-Tony

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@Tony I found a way… lol… (I will have @KBConcepts waiting now)

It’s a time consuming thing to do on any web site. HTML web sites are not well suited to these type of old text layouts designed hundreds of years ago.

What you could do however, is to use one of the many text apps that will take different text input and export or other formats. I use Quiver which has such a function, and you could create the text in Markdown or possibly just plain text, and then export it as HTML and then paste directly into Blocs.

@Tony I found a way… lol… (I will have @KBConcepts waiting now)

  1. Open “Textedit.app”

  2. in preferences in Open and Save tab go to "Options to save in HTML and choose HTML 4.01 Strict (I’m translating from Portuguese, so it could be different, sorry for that)

  3. Then in Format Menu - Choose “allow hyphenation”

  4. Copy/Paste from Word or Pages your work to Text Editor.

  5. Save as…

  6. Name and in the end choose the html format.

  7. HTML bric in Blocs…

And Voila… everything is ok with a clean html code…

I think this method cover your “future concerns”… check it…

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@Pealco this method produces much cleaner html – thank you!

I had to fiddle with TextEdit quite a while before I could even see the html export option because I think had it set up for exporting plain text earlier. I restored defaults and kept fiddling with it until I saw the export as html option.

This is a workable solution and I’ve marked this question as solved.

Although I enjoy Blocs very much, it seems to me that there are things like this that are missing – so we need the code bric to come to the rescue. Therefore, it’s really not quite to the point to where one doesn’t need to know any coding at all – at least not in my experience.

Thanks again

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No problem, glad that could help.

@webdeersign This doesn’t like easy. LOL

That GitHub link is very old. Quiver matured into a healthy app.

I found this helpful. I took a complicated Word template and pasted it into.

Not being a coder it looked good to me. :slight_smile:

Another one this has interesting information is https://pandoc.org

Wow, Quiver is pretty cool, thanks for sharing this, I just bought a copy, very handy!

Urg, this one has limits, until you subscribe!
Does anyone have any good sources for doing this?
Live Editor with HTML5 / Script with Preview
What do you think of this one?

Hello @KBConcepts @handshaper @Tony in a different topic, this subject appears again, and I think I found 3 good solutions, hope they will help you in your projects:

OPTION 1:

  1. Open word or pages, and save your work in docx format…
  2. Go to THIS website and upload your file created in point 1
  3. Copy the content from the left box when created. NOTE: DONT USE THE COPY TO CLIBBOARD BUTTON AS IT NOT COPY THE ENTIRE CODE.
  4. Download THIS (MACDOWN APP) software.
  5. When you copy the text from point 3 and past it into the software in point 4, then go to File - > Export → HTML
  6. Download THIS (BRACKETS APP) software.
  7. Open the HTML file you create in point 5.
  8. Copy the code from inside.
  9. Paste it in HTML Bric in Blocs.

OPTION 2

  1. Open word or pages, and save your work in docx format…
  2. Download THIS (TEXTS APP) software.
  3. When you open it it will ask for Pandoc, allow to install it, it will redirect to THIS (PANDOC EXTENSION) page.
  4. Open TEXTS APP you installed in step 2.
  5. Go to File-> Import → Word (docx) the file you create in Step 1.
  6. Go to File → Export → HTML Page.
  7. Download THIS (BRACKETS APP) software.
  8. Open the HTML file you create in point 6.
  9. Copy the code from inside.
  10. Paste it in HTML Bric in Blocs.

OPTION 3 (HAVE TO USE “MICROSOFT WORD” IN WINDOWS)

  1. Download THIS plug in. (WRITAGE PLUG IN)
  2. Create your file normally in WORD and then Choose «Save as…» command and choose «Markdown» from «Save as type» field
  3. Download THIS (MACDOWN APP) software.
  4. Open the file you create in point 2.
  5. Go to File - > Export → HTML
  6. Download THIS (BRACKETS APP) software.
  7. Open the HTML file you create in point 5.
  8. Copy the code from inside.
  9. Paste it in HTML Bric in Blocs.

Hope it will help you all…

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I love how you are here for us my friend. :grinning:

Thank you for your words… it takes me a few hours from my time, but I like to help… and like more when some users like you, thanks me for the time I spend here…

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