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Best software for converting copy to HTML on a Mac?

by C.B. Stewart
8 replies
Hey guys, I searched and couldn't find this, so thanks in advance for your suggestions...

I have a designer who codes all the CSS for my sales pages. All I need is to provide the basic HTML with my copy inside it. I'm talking just h1, h2, h3, h4, and p tags wrapped around the copy I've written.

What's the best software to use on a Mac to get this done? I've looked into web design software, basic word processing software that exports to HTML, and more, but I haven't found anything that works well yet. I just want to be able to specify text as a header (h1, for example), other text as subheader (h2), and then the body text (p) and be able to just copy and paste it inside an HTML page that is already programmed to load up my CSS stylesheets.

Thanks for your suggestions!
C.B. Stewart
#converting #copy #html #mac #software
  • Profile picture of the author C.B. Stewart
    Quick follow-up from my testing...

    The free and open source KompoZer (KompoZer - Easy web authoring) actually seems like it might be EXACTLY what I'm looking for. I can just paste my sales copy in, quickly specify headers, subheaders, and paragraphs, and it gives me simple, clean, basic HTML.

    I just don't necessarily trust its stability to be able to actually write my sales copy from start to finish directly inside it. Are there any other solutions anyone knows of that would be good for this - write sales copy from start to finish and be able to export clean HTML with headers and subheaders and paragraphs and text stylings in tact?

    Thanks!
    C.B. Stewart
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    • Profile picture of the author The Copy Nazi
      Banned
      Originally Posted by C.B. Stewart View Post

      Quick follow-up from my testing...

      The free and open source KompoZer (KompoZer - Easy web authoring) actually seems like it might be EXACTLY what I'm looking for. I can just paste my sales copy in, quickly specify headers, subheaders, and paragraphs, and it gives me simple, clean, basic HTML.

      I just don't necessarily trust its stability to be able to actually write my sales copy from start to finish directly inside it. Are there any other solutions anyone knows of that would be good for this - write sales copy from start to finish and be able to export clean HTML with headers and subheaders and paragraphs and text stylings in tact?

      Thanks!
      C.B. Stewart
      Try free OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite - you can export the file as html.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Rogers
      Originally Posted by C.B. Stewart View Post

      Quick follow-up from my testing...

      The free and open source KompoZer (KompoZer - Easy web authoring) actually seems like it might be EXACTLY what I'm looking for. I can just paste my sales copy in, quickly specify headers, subheaders, and paragraphs, and it gives me simple, clean, basic HTML.

      I just don't necessarily trust its stability to be able to actually write my sales copy from start to finish directly inside it. Are there any other solutions anyone knows of that would be good for this - write sales copy from start to finish and be able to export clean HTML with headers and subheaders and paragraphs and text stylings in tact?

      Thanks!
      C.B. Stewart
      KompoZer can get it done for you, but you'll have more junk code than any man should have to sort through.

      Sorry I don't have a better solution for you offhand. Just a warning.

      Kevin
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  • Profile picture of the author EaglePiServ
    NeoOffice is the Mac equivalent of OpenOffice which will do what you require.
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    • Profile picture of the author The Copy Nazi
      Banned
      Originally Posted by EaglePiServ View Post

      NeoOffice is the Mac equivalent of OpenOffice which will do what you require.
      I'm all over that. Open Office is a tad quirky running on Leopard. Thanks for the tip, Oirish. NeoOffice Home
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeHumphreys
        According to NoteTab's website you can run their software on a Mac if you're already running/using Wine on it.

        Here's a link to the FAQ where it explains it in Mac language (I'm a PC user):

        Fookes Software - NoteTab - FAQ

        That's one of the cleanest basic text/HTML editors I've seen with prices ranging from free to $30 (there's more than one version available). I use it frequently for writing autoresponder emails.

        Personally, I've found that Dreamweaver delivers the cleanest HTML code to deal with but it's not cheap and has a steep learning curve.
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        • Profile picture of the author C.B. Stewart
          Hey guys - quick follow-up...

          Thank you for all your suggestions!

          Don't know why I never thought of this, but the easiest solution turned out to be WordPress - but not in the way you think...

          I simply set up a "dummy" WordPress installation, and what I do is copy and paste all the copy text from my text editor to a blank page in WordPress.

          This leaves all the formatting (centered text, italic text, bold text) in place, and all I have to do is specifically decide what are to be classified as headers, subheaders, and so on.

          Publish the page, view its source, and I have clean, formatted HTML for my sales copy!

          Hopefully this will help someone else in the future...

          C.B. Stewart
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          • Profile picture of the author dudestar
            Hi,

            I am trial-ing WriteRoom (Mac) at the moment and it's pretty impressive.

            It sort of blocks out the rest of your screen and only shows up an area
            to write in... leaving you to only focus on the words.

            Brilliant for copy writing.

            The other thing I use for my macbookpro is just to write in textedit. That's
            excellent enough, you can get words down quickly and increase sizes for
            subheadlines instantly etc.

            After that's done I just put it straight into Smultron (a html editor) which I
            use everyday. Then you can create your html pages or CSS really quickly.

            Those tools are priceless for me.



            Martin
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            A wickedly effective way to get more web site traffic!

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