We've helped several hundred law firms, corporations, and government agencies migrate over 200 million documents from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word (and sometimes back, for dual-shops), but that's only the beginning of the story. We always do more...

When we take on a migration project, we roll up our sleeves and get to know everything we can about the documents and the people who use them. Who shares what? What is the document management system? Who are the users? Who are the people on the support desk? What are the unwritten rules that need to be understood if things are going to work in the new environment?

Here are some of the stories that show how "the migration moment" can—with the right partner—be a catalyst for all-round improvement of a firm's entire document process.

A large medical supply company maintained their packaging designs in a legacy format. The documents included text, in multiple languages, and complex graphics. Using a custom version of DocXchange, we migrated the text to Word and the graphics to JPEG, then reunited both components in the output documents.

A mid-sized law firm was moving from WordPerfect to Word and a new document management system. The legacy files were stored in an unmanaged state using an unusual numbering sequence. Microsystems parsed through thousands of combinations and delivered author and other relevant information to the profile in DOCS Open.

A multinational law firm needed to move 30,000 documents from an Isys database to their Plumtree portal. We scoped out the document management systems and developed a custom methodology that brought all 30,000 documents in to the new portal on time and cleanly converted.

An absorbed firm needed to convert quickly from WordPerfect to Word, but wanted to maintain their document categorization and identification. DocXchange re-engineered their files to match the same document types in WordPerfect in less than a week.

The merger of two large firms required that the documents be brought to a new standard, and one DMS solution eliminated. Microsystems migrated the documents and related the old profiles to the new standard.

A top-three banking institution "converted" their documents to Word from WordPerfect by opening them in Word. (This uses Word's built-in converter, and typically leads to serious problems with documents of any complexity.) They were experiencing significant issues with over one million potentially corrupt documents, including crashing of their DocsOpen indexer. Using DocXchange, Microsystems rebuilt the documents, then guided the company through creating a stable Word environment. The customer reports that the Word environment is much more stable, the DocsOpen indexer works fine, and their Word documents behave as expected.

A top 20 law firm needed to migrate from Word 6 and a legacy DMS to Word 2000 and iManage. Using DocXchange at the desktop, users were able to map their own templates on the fly.

A large financial institution discovered in migrating from WP to Word that 25% of their documenbts could not be opened as a result of corruption remaining from a Wang conversion. Microsystems dug past the usual WordPerfect issues, developing unique algorithms to detect and resolve these items at the binary level.

A large law firm had inadvertently deployed a corrupt style firm-wide as part of a Word upgrade. This resulted in severe document production problems. Using DocXamine, Microsystems detected and replaced the problem style throughout thousands of affected documents..

A government office maintaining over 50 official forms in WordPerfect needed the current document store updated to the new environment and standards. Each of the different files was identified, attached to the proper new template, and re-engineered for the new format.

Needing a new format for automation-friendly documents, DocXchange transformed many of this firm's Word 6 marketing files to modern Word 2000 documents ready for publication to the Web.

About our Production Services

Migration services typically include DocXchange, the scalable conversion platform, and DocXtools, the diagnostic and cleanup tool.

A Planning Checklist