Converting .Doc Files To .Xml

The customer is a leading eLearning company based in USA, providing eLearning to clients across the country.

The customer approached Upside Learning to create an application for its end client. Before engaging with Upside Learning, the client used to manually generate XMLs, each XML being written by reading the content from a Word document and then putting the content into individual XML tags.

The client wanted to eliminate this cumbersome and timeconsuming activity and hence wanted to create a desktopbased application that could directly convert a Word document into XML. The XML files were to be generated in such a way so as to be read by the SWF to generate a Flash UI, which would be used by the client in their exams.

As the client would manually generate the XMLs, the time and effort taken to enter the data from the .doc file into the .xml file and the errors on account of spelling mistakes, questions forgotten, wrong type of questions being assigned etc. were tremendous.

With a view to slashing the time for conversion and eliminating the errors, Upside Learning created a desktopbased tool using C#.NET and .NET Framework 2.0, that provided the user an ability to select a word document (.DOC, .DOCX) and also to indicate the path for saving the output (.XML) file.

On validation, the .doc file was converted into an .xml file which could be read by the SWF file and shown as test questions as part of the course.

Thus, the tool gave the user the ability to:

1. Select the Word document
2. Validate the document
3. Report any errors in the document
4. Generate the XMLs, in the format that could be read by the SWF
5. Select the location on the machine where the output XML files were to be saved

Upside Learning's expertise and experience in both technology and content services, helped in effective understanding of the client requirements and turning around the solution quickly. Understanding of eLearning enabled the company to look at the solution not just from a tool development approach but from a holistic perspective by placing the solution in the right context.

The tool allowed the client to:

1. Generate multiple XMLs with multiple question types from one document file
2. Allocate the conversion task to more employees, as earlier only few qualified employees were able to do the conversion, given that it had to be done responsibly and with utmost care
3. Convert the files efficiently in a quick, error-free fashion

1. Developed in: C#.NET using ,NET Framework 2.0
2. Tested on following Operating Systems: Windows XP service pack 2
3. Works with MS Office Word 2003
4. Requires administrator rights for installation on user machine
5. For the tool to work, the format of the Word document should be same as the established template
6. Installer created using the packager tool of MS Visual Studio 2005

1. Generation of multiple XMLs which can be read by the SWF file
2. Efficient error reporting
3. Proficient document validation process

Download PDF VersionBack To Case Studies