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Batch Conversion of Word Documents to PDF

Forum Index > PDF Creation > Batch Conversion of Word Documents to PDF
2008-05-22 15:47:00
bfarmer
Registered: May 22 2008
Posts: 3

Our company periodically needs to convert a large set of Microsoft Word documents to PDF format for a client. We would like to automate this and do it from a command line so that it can be run from a batch file without user intervention. I am using Acrobat 8 Professional. I located the program ConvertWord.exe under the Designer 8.0 folder which looked promising, but it gets a missing fonts error and when I direct it to ignore the error, the PDF file created is corrupt (according to Acrobat). Does anyone know how I can accomplish a Word to PDF file conversion from a command prompt?

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2008-05-23 00:22:15
#1
tractionsoftware
Registered: May 3 2007
Posts: 27
We have a solution, install Acrobat, in printer properties setup the "Adobe PDF" printer driver to print to a folder e.g. c:\output, disable the view after print.

Download and install our tool Batch & Print Pro from here: http://www.traction-software.co.uk/batchprint/Run on the command line e.g.

CD "C:\Program Files\Traction Software\Batch & Print Pro"
"Batch And Print" -P"Adobe PDF" c:\files\*.doc -p -q


It uses MS Word to print the docs to pdf so you won't have any issues with fonts etc.

Lee
Traction Software
http://www.traction-software.co.uk
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2008-05-23 09:53:40
#2
bfarmer
Registered: May 22 2008
Posts: 3
Thanks Lee,

This works quite nicely. And I like this solution becaue it uses the Acrobat printer driver which is faster and more reliable in terms of document quality than some of the PDF converters that I was looking into. The only (minor) issue is that the output files go to a pre-defined directory (set in the Adobe printer driver), but we can get around that by adding some logic to our scripting language to copy the files after each batch conversion to the desired directory. I just need to get our purchasing department to submit a P.O. for the non-trial version of your product.

Thanks for this solution.

Bruce Farmer
Southwest Research Institute
http://www.swri.org
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