Saving documents as PDF

[The Learner]

Hello all,

just a quick question: is it possible to save Word documents in a Container field as PDFs? Does FM allow for that?

Thanks.

[Wim Decorte]

No, but there are few easy ways to do it, including integrating with Microsoft's APIs.  If you store the Word doc on OneDrive it's as simple as an API call to get MS to convert the file for you and get the resulting PDF in a container.

In the screenshot below the "convert to PDF" button on the right will do that, it will tell MS that this word doc that is on OneDrive (doesn't even have to be on my machine yet) needs to be converted to PDF.

If you happen to have Office 365, all the APIs are right there and they are pretty fantastic.  Along those lines: sending out an HTML email?  Incredibly easy with their APIs, no fiddling with plugins or complex SMTP commands.

There are also command line utilities that you can use to create PDFs or you can talk to the Word application interfaces of your local Word install.  For both of those you'd use the FM Send Event script step to execute the necessary code outside of FM (On Windows).  On macOS you also have the option of using "perform applescript"

Edited February 10, 2020 by Wim Decorte

[The Learner]

Thanks Wim for your detailed response.

I will explore each aspect of your response carefully. But I must say, at first glance your suggestions appear way beyond my knowledge and abilities in front of a computer screen. For instance, I have no idea what integrating with Microsoft's APIs means...

But a couple of questions come to my mind: 1) I understand I'd have first to transfer to OneDrive all the Word documents to be converted that are now in my FM database , correct? 2) Once transferred, could they all be converted into PDFs as a batch, or would they have to be converted one by one?