BS Office File Converter

Created by Alexander Wörl
Last updated: May 19, 2022 by Alexander Fischer-Brandies

Overview

BS Office File Converter allows a user to automatically convert an existing office document, such as a Word document or a PowerPoint slide deck, into a PDF. The resulting PDF is created and stored alongside the original document and can be previewed in the DAM.

Conversion via BS Event Plugin

Usage

This feature allows the application to convert documents of various formats (docx, pptx, xlsx…) into a standard PDF automatically during:

  1. Creation / Upload: When a document is first created in the application

  2. Modification: When the content within the document is modified

  3. Replacement: When the document itself is replaced entirely i.e. using the ‘Upload and Replace’ feature.

Editing the document 'metadata' is not considered a modification to the content of the document and will not result in the generation of a new PDF.

Behavior

Upon converting a document into a PDF, the application will generate and store the converted PDF alongside the original document(s) - using the filename of the existing document. For example, the Word document ‘Sample (New).docx’ has been converted into the PDF ‘Sample (New).pdf’

Original Document

Resulting PDF

 

If multiple documents (within the same folder) with identical filenames are converted into PDFs, the converted PDFs are named as follows:

  1. Sample (New).docx will be saved as Sample (New).pdf

  2. Sample (New).pptx will be saved as Sample (New) 2.pdf

Configuration

Prerequisite: This feature requires the installation of the business solution module ‘BS Office’.

To use this feature, configure an Active Job as follows:

Go to Administration > System Preferences > ActiveJobs > Presets > BS and create a new Active Job. Let’s call it - ‘BS Office File Converter’.

 

Configure the job as displayed in the screen shots below, and then save the configuration.

Important Parameters

  1. Script: Select ‘BS Event Queue’ from the list of available scripts

  2. Events from / Events until: Defines the duration of time within which documents (newly created, modified, or replaced) will be detected and converted to PDF.

    1. Any documents created or modified outside this period will not be converted.

  3. Event Listeners: Select BS Office File Converter from the available listeners

  4. Source Type: Select the formats of the source files from the available options. Most popular options include:

    1. pptx

    2. docx

    3. xlsx

File Conversion via Workflow Action Plugin

File conversion is also available as a workflow action.

The configuration for this works in the same way: