# Converting a Word Document to Markdown in One Move

## The Problem

A lot of important government documents are created and saved in Microsoft Word (*.docx). But Microsoft Word is a proprietary format, and it's not really useful for presenting documents on the web. So, I wanted to find a way to convert a .docx file into markdown.

## Installing Pandoc
On a mac you can use [homebrew](http://brew.sh/) by running the command `brew install pandoc`.

## The Solution

As it turns out, there are several open-source tools that allow for conversion between file types. [Pandoc](johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/) is one of them, and it's powerful. In fact, pandoc's website says "If you need to convert files from one markup format into another, pandoc is your swiss-army knife." Pandoc can convert from markdown into .docx, and it also works in the other direction.

## Example

Say you have the Council Rules in a Word Document named "test.docx." [(For a real-life example, visit https://github.com/vzvenyach/Council_Rules/).](https://github.com/vzvenyach/Council_Rules/) Now, you run the following at the command line:

    pandoc -f docx -t markdown -o test.md test.docx

Out is a beautiful markdown file. Admittedly, there's a bit of junk at the top with the Table of Contents. I deleted this when I rendered it nicely with strapdown.js. [In the end, here's my nicely rendered version of the Rules.](http://vzvenyach.github.io/Council_Rules/Rules.html)