MS-Word to iXBRL

Question

I need to develop a MS-Word plug in application using VS2008 that converts a docx file having content controls to iXBRL format. iXBRL format is a relatively new financial statement standard.

Are there any APIs to help me out or can anyone give me idea to go ahead with it?

Thanks in advance.

Regards, Saubhagya

Answer 1

I've found a way but it will be great if anybody could help in achieving this or give some insight whether I'm right.

Solution is:

Save the file as an html file and edit the tags using XML DOM in C#. But as I'm new to C# I'm not really aware how to do it efficiently. Please help.

Answer 2

I'd do it by converting the OpenXML docx to XHTML via XSLT.

My XSLT would ask "does the content control have a tag containing any special instruction?"

Such an instruction might be: output this content control as element us-gaap:DebtDisclosureTextBlock

In which case whatever the content control contained would be wrapped in that element.

If you take this approach, you need:

1. a way of doing the docx to XHTML which acts on the instructions in your content control tag

2. a way of adding the content control tag in the first place (you can do this via the Word Ribbon - Developer tab, but you might want to give your users a way to choose the appropriate XBRL element)

Answer 3

I have worked in IXBRL and even worked on the Software which converts doc into the ixbrl file. IXBRL files are nothing but Xhtml files which are having IXBRL tags.( u must be knowing this). Software actually works the way u had answered.

DOC >>(converted into) XHTML >> then tagging is done using software to make it IXBRL file. The later procedure is a bit tedious and u need specialized softwares for that. This softwares take years to built and you need to either purchase it or create on your own.(like we did)

But There is Mozilla addon available which will help you in converting Xhtml into iXBRL formats.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xbrl-addon/