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Converting WordML to PDF

A question was raised during my last smart client session in Stockholm about a direct way of transforming WordML to PDF format. I know that you can use the Adobe tools (such as the Distiller) or open source projects (programmatically creating PDF), but we are looking here for a clean and direct way of doing it without having to have Word installed on the server itself. If you have any ideas or came across a tool that can do this, let me know and somebody in Denmark will be very happy :-)

posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 6:20 AM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

Henrik Andersson

Hi Patrick,

Just a small note. Stockholm is the capital in Sweden, not in Denmark ;)
What do you think of the SPPS awareness of swedish corporations?

Posted @ 4/15/2005 9:29 AM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

Patrick Tisseghem

Don't worry Henrik! I just had Danish people in the classroom :-)

Posted @ 4/15/2005 9:35 AM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

Henrik Andersson

oh, Danish and Swedish people in the same classroom ;) Will you visit Sweden in the near future again? It would be interesting to hear you talk about the technologies you write about

Posted @ 4/15/2005 10:09 AM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

Patrick Verbruggen

I haven't tried this myself, but CambridgeDocs claims to be able to do this via an intermediate conversion to XSL:FO. (WordML --> XSL:FO --> PDF). I would not be surprised however that some aspects of layout will get lost in the process...

Anyway: see http://www.cambridgedocs.com/products_wordml2FO.htm

Posted @ 4/15/2005 2:47 PM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

Not exactly what you asked for but..
We use a tool that doesn't need anything of office installed on the server. It can read and write MsWord documents, write html or PDF's. I'm affraid they don't support WordML yet.

www.aspose.com

Posted @ 4/16/2005 1:20 AM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

Patrick,

I'm looking for the same thing. At this point I'm thinking the best route would be like Patrick V suggested, convert to WordML to XSL:FO then from there (maybe with a pass through HTML Tidy to validate the XML) you could use something like iTextSharp or a commercial tool to get to the PDF version?

I'm going to take a look at CambridgeDocs to see what they offer. There's also a server component from TX that does conversions from one format to another (e.g. Doc to PDF) but they don't support WordML yet however if you just applied the Office schemas to the WordML you could get a HTML output which could then be converted.

Lots of different ways to do things here but would be nice if it was a simple one or two step process.

Posted @ 4/16/2005 4:52 PM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

I know this can be done from OpenOffice. Open office will open a Word 2003 doc (in any format - if memory serves me right) and you just press a button and it converts to pdf.

This might not be the correct tool, but I think it is a good starting point

Posted @ 4/21/2005 1:27 PM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

José Rubén Hernández

Hi guys

check out

www.alt-soft.com

they have an application already done as a hot-folder and a .net component

un saludo
Jose Ruben

Posted @ 7/27/2005 7:14 AM

# re: Converting WordML to PDF

It works better than the vast majority of converters out there because it can do some of the automatic adjustments performed by Word when opening documents (that is, even if your XML document says "header is 1 inch in height", Word will still autosize the header i based on the real content).
www.ecrion.com for download; it also works on DocX documents (Word 2007)

Posted @ 6/5/2007 2:08 AM

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