Convert Word documents to PDF in SharePoint Server 2010 using PowerShell

SharePoint Server 2010 Standard and Enterprise editions includes a feature called Word Automation Services. There is an excellent article here explaining it in more detail, but in summary, the feature provides the capability for converting documents from one Microsoft Word format to another (e.g., .doc to .docx), converting Word documents to .pdf or .xps, and execute tasks during the opening of a document – such as updating the Table of Contents or index fields.

Whilst there are probably more applications for converting documents in workflows and event receivers, a batch of documents can also be converted using PowerShell. In this article I shall run through the basic steps involved in converting documents with an example of how to convert Word documents to PDF, plus some information on how you can speed up the conversion process and also remove the original Word documents from SharePoint, once successfully converted.

Before you can start converting documents, you will need to create a Word Automation Service Application instance from the Manage Service Applications page in Central Administration, and start the Word Automation Services service from the Manage services on server page, also in Central Administration. I’m also assuming that you have a site ready with a document library containing the Word documents to be converted, as shown below.

Once you have your service application running, you can type the following two lines in PowerShell to connect to the Word Automation Services Proxy and set up the variable for a new conversion job:

$wasp = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | where { $_.TypeName -eq "Word Automation Services Proxy" }
$job = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions.ConversionJob($wasp)

Next, we will get the site, folder containing the Word documents to be converted, and folder to store the converted PDF documents (this folder can be the same). Note that in addition to converting documents in folders, the ConversionJob class also contains methods to add individual files or complete document libraries, if preferred:

$web = Get-SPWeb http://portal/team
$inputFolder = $web.GetFolder("Shared Documents/Word Documents")
$outputFolder = $web.GetFolder("Shared Documents/PDF Documents")

We can now set up our conversion job using the properties available in the ConversionJob class. This includes a description for the job, specifying PDF as the save format, and choosing to overwrite any PDF documents with the same name that currently exist in the folder:

$job.UserToken = $web.CurrentUser.UserToken
$job.Name = "Convert Hello Docs to PDF"
$job.Settings.OutputFormat = [Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions.SaveFormat]::PDF
$job.Settings.OutputSaveBehavior = [Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions.SaveBehavior]::AlwaysOverwrite

The AddFolder method below includes the input folder (source folder containing the Word documents), output folder (destination folder into which the converted PDF documents will be copied), and a boolean option specifying whether you want to include sub-folders under the input folder. For example, if this is set to $true, then documents will be converted from the input folder and all documents in sub-folders below it:

#Add input and output folders and start conversion
$job.AddFolder($inputFolder, $outputFolder, $false)
$job.Start()

You can view the status of your job by typing the following commands:

$status = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions.ConversionJobStatus($wasp.Id, $job.JobId, $null)
$status

An example of a conversion status report is shown below:

If you are wondering why the status for your documents are shown as “NotStarted”, it is because they are converted by a timer job, which by default runs every 15 minutes. If you want to start this timer job now instead of waiting, type the following:

$watj = Get-SPTimerJob "Word Automation Service Application"
$watj.RunNow()

Once the timer job has been run, the updated status will look as follows:

There is a nice bit of C# code in this article from the Microsoft Word product team blog which waits until all documents have been converted and then deletes the successfully converted Word documents from the input location. I have adapted this for use in PowerShell below. Just tack it on to the end of the timer job commands if you want to include it in a PS1 script file:

[bool]$done = $false
write-host "Converting files - Please wait..."
while(!$done)
{
    Start-Sleep -s 5
    $status = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions.ConversionJobStatus($wasp.Id, $job.JobId, $null)
   
    if ($status.Count -eq ($status.Succeeded + $status.Failed + $status.Canceled))
    {
        $done = $true
       
        #Delete original Word files successfully converted to PDF
        #Remove this code if you want to keep the documents in their original location
        $itemType = [Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions.ItemTypes]::Succeeded
        $items = $status.GetItems($itemType)
        foreach($item in $items) {
            $file = $web.GetFile($item.InputFile)
            $file.Delete()
        }
    }
}
write-host "Conversion operation complete - Status report:"
$status
$web.Dispose()

Once the job has completed, you should see the converted PDF files in the output location specified in the script: