vbscript to convert word doc to pdf

Question

I have written a short vbscript that opens a word document, edits a few bookmarks and saves to a new .doc file.

I now need to convert this to a pdf file, which is st

Answer 1

According to MS you can save as/to PDF in Word 2010 without add-ons; Word 2007 needs an add-on, see here for VBScript code. In either case, something like

objDoc.SaveAs <FullPathToOutputFile>, wdFormatPDF

should do the trick without involving a 'printer'.

For antique versions of Word the options are (in order of effort/gain ratio):

1. update Word
2. Record a macro of printing to the PDF printer and port the code to VBScript

Answer 2

Rafael use CreateObject("Word.Application") for creating new MSWord process. In my system this code does not close word process correctly. but this code works correct

Const wdExportAllDocument = 0
Const wdExportOptimizeForPrint = 0
Const wdExportDocumentContent = 0
Const wdExportFormatPDF = 17
Const wdExportCreateHeadingBookmarks = 1

if  Wscript.Arguments.Count > 0 Then
    ' Get the running instance of MS Word. If Word is not running, Create it
    On Error Resume Next
    Set objWord = GetObject(, "Word.Application")
    If Err <> 0 Then
        Set objWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
    End If
    On Error GoTo 0

    Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(WScript.Arguments(0))
    Set objDoc = objWord.Documents.Open(WScript.Arguments(0),,TRUE)

    'Export to PDF using preferred settings
    pdf = objWord.ActiveDocument.ExportAsFixedFormat( _
        WScript.Arguments(1), _
        wdExportFormatPDF, False, wdExportOptimizeForPrint, _
        wdExportAllDocument,,, _
        wdExportDocumentContent, _
        False, True, _
        wdExportCreateHeadingBookmarks _
    )

    'Quit MS Word
    objWord.DisplayAlerts = False
    objWord.Quit(False)
    set objWord = nothing
    set objFSO = nothing
Else
    msgbox("You must select a file to convert")
End If

If this code save on word2pdf.vbs, it can called by this command at cmd:

wscript word2pdf.vbs input.docx output.pdf

Answer 3

If you're using Word 2003, you're going to need some sort of external library/file to do the conversion.

Would something like this help: http://www.verypdf.com/pdfcamp/word-to-pdf-converter.html seems to have a command line option.

Answer 4

I once wrote a blog article on this matter. The conversion can be done as follows:

Function DocToPdf( docInputFile, pdfOutputFile )

  Dim fileSystemObject
  Dim wordApplication
  Dim wordDocument
  Dim wordDocuments
  Dim baseFolder

  Set fileSystemObject = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
  Set wordApplication = CreateObject("Word.Application")
  Set wordDocuments = wordApplication.Documents

  docInputFile = fileSystemObject.GetAbsolutePathName(docInputFile)
  baseFolder = fileSystemObject.GetParentFolderName(docInputFile)

  If Len(pdfOutputFile) = 0 Then
    pdfOutputFile = fileSystemObject.GetBaseName(docInputFile) + ".pdf"
  End If

  If Len(fileSystemObject.GetParentFolderName(pdfOutputFile)) = 0 Then
    pdfOutputFile = baseFolder + "\" + pdfOutputFile
  End If

  ' Disable any potential macros of the word document.
  wordApplication.WordBasic.DisableAutoMacros

  Set wordDocument = wordDocuments.Open(docInputFile)

  ' See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb221597.aspx
  wordDocument.SaveAs pdfOutputFile, wdFormatPDF

  wordDocument.Close WdDoNotSaveChanges
  wordApplication.Quit WdDoNotSaveChanges

  Set wordApplication = Nothing
  Set fileSystemObject = Nothing

End Function

It is important to close the files though. Note that you require Word 2007 with PDF plugin or Word 2010+ for doing this.