# How to export from Word to Processing

**URL:** <https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831>\
**Category:** Project Guidance\
**Created:** [February 4, 2024, 7:56pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831 "2024-02-04T19:56:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chrisir](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/chrisir/32/45_2.png) [@Chrisir](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Chrisir)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 7:56pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831/1 "2024-02-04T19:56:42Z")

</div>

Hello all,

I exported a Word Document to a text document.

When I load the text document in processing though, special signs such as äöü are destroyed.

Since my question:

How to export from word to processing?

I use `ActiveDocument.SaveAs2 FileName:=newName, FileFormat:=wdFormatUnicodeText, ....`

Word offers a lot of options as shown below.

Which one is correct?

Thanks a lot!

Warm regards,

Chrisir

```auto
wdFormatDocument 0 Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2003 binary file format.
wdFormatDOSText 4 Microsoft DOS text format.
wdFormatDOSTextLineBreaks 5 Microsoft DOS text with line breaks preserved.
wdFormatEncodedText 7 Encoded text format.
wdFormatFilteredHTML 10 Filtered HTML format.
wdFormatFlatXML 19 Open XML file format saved as a single XML file.
wdFormatFlatXMLMacroEnabled 20 Open XML file format with macros enabled saved as a single XML file.
wdFormatFlatXMLTemplate 21 Open XML template format saved as a XML single file.
wdFormatFlatXMLTemplateMacroEnabled 22 Open XML template format with macros enabled saved as a single XML file.
wdFormatOpenDocumentText 23 OpenDocument Text format.
wdFormatHTML 8 Standard HTML format.
wdFormatRTF 6 Rich text format (RTF).
wdFormatStrictOpenXMLDocument 24 Strict Open XML document format.
wdFormatTemplate 1 Word template format.
wdFormatText 2 Microsoft Windows text format.
wdFormatTextLineBreaks 3 Windows text format with line breaks preserved.
wdFormatUnicodeText 7 Unicode text format.
wdFormatWebArchive 9 Web archive format.
wdFormatXML 11 Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.
wdFormatDocument97 0 Microsoft Word 97 document format.
wdFormatDocumentDefault 16 Word default document file format. For Word, this is the DOCX format.
wdFormatPDF 17 PDF format.
wdFormatTemplate97 1 Word 97 template format.
wdFormatXMLDocument 12 XML document format.
wdFormatXMLDocumentMacroEnabled 13 XML document format with macros enabled.
wdFormatXMLTemplate 14 XML template format.
wdFormatXMLTemplateMacroEnabled 15 XML template format with macros enabled.
wdFormatXPS 18 XPS format.

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GoToLoop](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/gotoloop/32/86_2.png) [@GoToLoop](https://discourse.processing.org/u/GoToLoop)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 8:10pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831/2 "2024-02-04T20:10:05Z")

</div>

Make sure it’s UTF-8, which is Processing’s text encoding.

You can check if your text file is UTF-8 by opening it using a simpler text editor, like this 1:

> **[Notepad3 → Rizonesoft.com](https://rizonesoft.com/downloads/notepad3/)**
>
> Notepad3 is a fast and light-weight Scintilla-based text editor with syntax highlighting. It has a small memory footprint, but is powerful enough to handle most programming jobs.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chrisir](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/chrisir/32/45_2.png) [@Chrisir](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Chrisir)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 8:39pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831/3 "2024-02-04T20:39:15Z")

</div>

Thanks, but utf 8 doesn’t appear in the list above.

Which format would be utf-8?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GoToLoop](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/gotoloop/32/86_2.png) [@GoToLoop](https://discourse.processing.org/u/GoToLoop)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 10:14pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831/4 "2024-02-04T22:14:49Z")

</div>

We can check current text encoding at the bottom part of Notepad3:

 ![Notepad3](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/uploads/processingfoundation1/original/3X/d/9/d991627667852e29ae217892c6020a663894ddf2.png)

We can double-click it to change to some other encoding.

We can also double-click to swap LF to CR+LF or to change current syntax highlighting.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chrisir](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/chrisir/32/45_2.png) [@Chrisir](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Chrisir)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/how-to-export-from-word-to-processing/43831/6 "2024-02-16T21:16:51Z")

</div>

I found a Powershell Skript (Win 10) to automatically convert all the txt files to utf8 in one go.

Thanks to all!