Approach to Creating an HTML Version of a Scientific Article from a Manuscript in MS Word Format for a Low-Budget Publisher

The most common approach to creating an HTML version of a journal article used by scientific publishers is to first create an XML version of the article in accordance with the NISO Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) standard, followed by automatic conversion to HTML and PDF. However, obtaining an XML version from a manuscript in the MS Word .docx format, often used by authors, when it contains a large number of complex formulas and tables, is a difficult task. Existing software either cannot cope with it in full or is expensive and inaccessible to small publishers on a limited budget. This paper proposes an approach to creating an HTML version of a journal article from a manuscript in .docx format containing formulas in MathType format, which does not require significant financial or time costs from the publisher. It also describes a prototype converter from .docx format to HTML and JATS XML formats that implements this approach and applicable to KIAM preprints.