Import a Word or PDF document

Most agencies already have their procedures as Word documents or PDFs. Import one into an article instead of retyping it, then tidy it up and take it through review like anything else you write. To bring in a whole folder at once, see Import a folder of documents.

1. 1Step 1:

   Open the article in the editor

   Create a new article, or open an existing one. Put the cursor where the imported text should go if you want to add it to what is already there.

2. 2Step 2:

   Choose the file

   Select the Import button (the page with an arrow) on the editor toolbar, then drop a .docx or .pdf file on the box or click to choose one. Nothing changes in your article yet.

3. 3Step 3:

   Check the summary

   ROK converts the file in your browser and shows what it found: for Word, how many images came across; for a PDF, how many pages, headings, lists and paragraphs. A preview of the converted text sits underneath. A long PDF shows its progress page by page.

4. 4Step 4:

   Insert it

   Insert at cursor adds the text where your cursor was; Replace body swaps out everything already in the article. For a PDF, leave Attach the original PDF to this article ticked to keep the source document with the article.

5. 5Step 5:

   Tidy up and submit

   Read it through, fix anything the conversion got wrong, and submit it for review. Importing never publishes anything.

Import a folder of documents

When the SOPs are a folder of files, bring them all in at once instead of one article at a time. Each file becomes its own draft article, in the order you choose, inside a guide. You need Create content and Edit content.

1. 1Step 1:

   Open the import

   On a guide's edit page, select Import documents into this guide under Guide contents. Or, on All content (opens the admin console), select Import documents and choose the guide under Import into, or New guide… and type its title.

2. 2Step 2:

   Choose the files

   Drop files or a folder on the box, or use Choose files or Choose a folder. Word .docx and PDF files are imported, up to 200 at a time. A folder you choose or drop is the starting point: the files directly in it go straight into the guide, and each folder inside it becomes a sub-guide named after the folder, holding that folder's files. Folders further down are folded into their top folder's sub-guide.

3. 3Step 3:

   Check the plan

   Nothing has been written yet. The plan lists every file in the order it will be imported, with the title each article will get, and a box to leave a file out. Edit any title, and use the up and down arrows to change the order (sub-guide titles can be edited too). Files that cannot be imported are listed under files will be skipped with the reason: a legacy .doc, a type other than .docx or PDF, an empty file, or the temporary ~$ file Word leaves next to an open document.

4. 4Step 4:

   Choose the options

   Use each document's own title when it has one (ticked): a document with a single top-level heading (Word's Title style, or exactly one Heading 1; for a PDF, the one large title at the top of page 1) takes it as its title, and the heading is taken out of the body so the title does not appear twice. A title you typed in the plan always wins. A document that uses Heading 1 for every section keeps its file name as the title.

   Remove sort numbers from titles appears when file names start with numbers like "01 " or "1.2 –". It is ticked when every file is numbered, which usually means the numbers are there only to sort the files.

   Attach the original PDF to each article made from one (ticked) keeps the source PDF with each article, as the single import does.

5. 5Step 5:

   Import

   Select Import N documents. A progress bar follows the files one at a time; keep the window open until it finishes. Stop after this file ends the run cleanly, and the rest are listed as not imported.

6. 6Step 6:

   Read the results

   Every file gets a row: Imported, Check (imported, with something to look at, such as images that could not be uploaded or a PDF that could not be attached), Skipped with the reason (for example a damaged or password-protected file), or Not imported. Each title links to its new draft. Open the guide takes you to the guide's edit page.

Imported articles go after anything already in the guide, in the plan's order. A new guide, and every sub-guide, is created as a draft too, so nothing reaches operators until someone reviews and publishes it. A guide that is itself a sub-guide cannot hold sub-guides, because guides go only two levels deep; importing a folder into one puts every file straight into it, and the plan says so.

Each new guide, sub-guide and article counts towards your plan's content limit. If the import reaches the limit, it stops there and lists the remaining files as Not imported; nothing already imported is undone.

A scanned PDF with no text is imported as an article holding just the attached PDF, with a line in the body saying so; type the key steps into it before you publish.

What comes across

A PDF has no headings or lists inside it, only text placed on a page, so ROK works them out from the layout: larger or bold short lines become headings, lines that start with a bullet or a number (or are indented like list items) become lists, and running headers, footers and page numbers are left out. The result is a good starting point, not a copy of the page. Check the headings before you publish, because the operator app and the print binder navigate by them.

When a PDF has no text

A scanned PDF is a set of photographs of pages, with no text to read. ROK tells you so and offers Attach only: the PDF is attached to the article as it is, and you type the key steps into the article yourself. Password-protected PDFs cannot be read; remove the password and try again.

Very long PDFs import their first 200 pages; the whole file is still attached.