Need Help with a Mac Personal Book Creation

Thinking

I have about 1,700 separate .doc (not .docx) files of transcribed sermons on my Mac that combined make a book of 20,000 pages.
I do not have MS Word (do have LibreOffice and Pages)
I want to batch convert these .doc files to .docx files
Then batch combine these into one master .docx document with each chapter a .docx subdoc.
Finally, this would then be converted into a logos personal book with all the search advantages that brings.

I have NO idea how to do this.

Any suggestions that don't require the expense of purchasing and time learning MS Word on a Mac?

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Comments

MWW

The best I have found at batch converting doc files to docx files is Zamzar.com. I find the online sight works better for batch converting than the app.

JT (alabama24)

Finally, this would then be converted into a logos personal book with all the search advantages that brings.

What specifically do you mean? Have you ever created a personal book (windows or Mac)?

I want to batch convert these .doc files to .docx files

Depending upon your answer to the first question, this may not be important.

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1220165#Comment_1220165

The best I have found at batch converting doc files to docx files is Zamzar.com.

Thanks!

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1220174#Comment_1220174

What specifically do you mean? Have you ever created a personal book (windows or Mac)?

Yes. I have more than a 100 personal books. But these have always been just one document. This would be a master document with hundreds of sub-documents.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1220192#Comment_1220192

The only way I know to do this is to open each document and figure out how you are going to combine them. “Batch converting” isn’t necessary because you have work in Word to do first.

Wolfgang Schneider

I have about 1,700 separate .doc (not .docx) files of transcribed sermons on my Mac that combined make a book of 20,000 pages.

I do not have MS Word (do have LibreOffice and Pages)

With this amount of docs and total pages, I would plan to make several personal books, perhaps making divisions according to year.

You do not need MS Word, rather the source document file(s) to be used to build the PB must be in .docx format. As far as I know, LibreOffice provides an option to save as .docx file. I am not familiar with Mac software, but its software for creating documents may also have that option.

I want to batch convert these .doc files to .docx files
Then batch combine these into one master .docx document with each chapter a .docx subdoc.
Finally, this would then be converted into a logos personal book with all the search advantages that brings.

Instead of batch converting, you may want to load each .doc file, look it over and make needed adjustments or edits (adding tags, assign headings, etc.) to ensure that you have same styles, etc. ... and then save document as .docx file.

When creating the PB, you could then add not just 1 docx file in the "add file" field but multiple docx files and then build the book.

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1220202#Comment_1220202

The only way I know to do this is to open each document and figure out how you are going to combine them. “Batch converting” isn’t necessary because you have work in Word to do first.

First, I received these documents first as PDF files. I was able to get them in their original .doc files (but not .docx). I first need to run the batch process to convert them to .docx files. If I have to do this individually, it won't get done. Second, I can make a "master document" with each file a sub-document. I really want to know if this type of document can be made into a Personal Book. Lastly, can this be done without the expense of MS Word. The project has value, but I have it available in a PDF which I have completely indexed, but is a bit slow and no where near the value it would have with a Personal Book.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1220209#Comment_1220209

If I have to do this individually, it won't get done.

Then I don't think it will get done. You can create a personal document with multiple files, but I seriously doubt you will get it to work with 1700 files.

Lastly, can this be done without the expense of MS Word.

It depends upon what you mean by "word." It must be a .docx file (Word!), but you <can> use other programs to save the .doc files into .docx.

no where near the value it would have with a Personal Book.

That goes back to my original question, which you didn't answer. What "functionality" are you wanting? If you are just wanting the info in Logos and dont care about any extra features (not even chapters, etc.), that might be more doable. However:

combined make a book of 20,000 pages

I don't think you will get a personal book of that length.

If something like this were possible, this is what I think it might look like:

You would need to figure out how to break down the material into smaller chunks.
You would figure out how to combine the smaller grouping of .doc files into ONE file.
You would save that single file (of the smaller chunks) into a .docx file.
You would build a personal book using that ONE file.

Here is a link which explains creating a macro to merge documents: https://www.gaebler.com/How-to-Combine-Multiple-Word-Documents-Into-One-Document.htm

You may be able to get help using a different program to do the same thing.

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1220220#Comment_1220220

Here is a link which explains creating a macro to merge documents: https://www.gaebler.com/How-to-Combine-Multiple-Word-Documents-Into-One-Document.htm

Thanks again. The functionality I like from Logos is the ability to search by Scripture passage. I can't do that as a PDF. But there is a limit to the documents value in time, effort, and money to get this feature.

I think I will break the documents into ~20 Personal Books. Then combine the 20 PB's into 1 logos group that I can search as a group. That would give me the functionality I need without taking a huge amount of time or expense.