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Word Automation Services

Have you ever wanted to convert .docx files into PDF? We've heard from many customers trying to perform server side conversions of Open XML files (.docx) into fixed formats (PDF and XPS) using the Word desktop application, and that's what motivated us to create Word Automation Services.

As a component of SharePoint 2010, Word Automation Services allows you to perform file operations on the server that previously required automating desktop Word:

  • Converting between document formats (e.g. DOC to DOCX)
  • Converting to fixed formats (e.g. PDF or XPS)
  • Updating fields
  • Importing "alternate format chunks"
  • Etc.

If you've done any automation of Word, you're probably familiar with the challenges of doing so – challenges well documented by this Knowledge Base article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257757. With Word Automation Services, those challenges are a thing of the past:

  • Reliability – The service was built from the ground up to work in a server environment, which means that you no longer have to worry about issues like dialog boxes that bring the process to a halt, expecting a user to provide input; creating interactive user accounts under which to run the application to avoid running into permissions issues, etc.
  • Speed – The service is optimized to perform server-side file operations, and in doing so provides performancesignificantly better than existing solutions.
  • Scalability – The service can take advantage of the processing power available on typical server hardware (multiple processors, additional memory). For example, although a single instance of WINWORD.EXE can only utilize a single core of processing power, with Word Automation Services, you can specify the number of simultaneous conversions (and the # of processing cores) to use based on the available hardware.

And you still have a solution that has 100% fidelity with respect to the Word desktop application – documents are paginated the same way on the server as they are on the client, ensuring that what you see on the client is what you get from the server.

File formats the service can read:

  • Office Open XML (DOCX, DOCM, DOTX, DOTM)

  • Word 97-2003 Document (DOC) and Word 97-2003 Template (DOT)

    • We also support older versions of Word as far back as Word 2.0 for Windows (!)

  • Rich Text Format (RTF)
  • Single File Web Page (MHTML)
  • HTML
  • Word 2003 XML
  • Word 2007/2010 XML

File formats the service can write:

  • PDF
  • XPS
  • Office Open XML (DOCX, DOCM)
  • Word 97-2003 Document (DOC)
  • Rich Text Format (RTF)
  • Single File Web Page (MHTML)
  • Word 2007/2010 XML

This also meant that we needed to support all of the features that are part of loading/saving documents, i.e.:

  • XML data mapping – you can place updated XML in the document, and content controls will automatically be updated
  • Fields – the service (or the file) can be set to recalculate fields automatically during conversion
  • AF Chunks – you can embed documents (DOCX, HTML, RTF, DOC) within a DOCX file, and have the service merge in the content automatically
  • Upgrade – you can specify whether the file should be upgraded as part of loading it on the server
  • Add Thumbnail images on save
  • Etc.
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