Converting multiple Word files to PDFs

[BBA2013]

Dear All,

Same problem as in http://forums.adobe.com/message/5352395 :

Batch conversion of word files to PDF with the action wizard requires manual "OK" for both saving and the selection of the respective directory.

I am on Acrobat XI V11.0.3 (german version) and have not found any options to switch off the need to confirm each Document manually. All the options available in the "save" command part refer to the name of the file and the output format.

Not a nice feature with 1000+ docs to convert in a file structure...

Updating did not help. Company PC, cant just do the un/re-install-thing, unless all else fails.

So, I would be very grateful for you help.

best regards,

Boris

[Allta Media]

The only way I was able to "semi-automate" this was to also check the PDF Optimizer selection in the Output Options dialog and then create a PDF Optimizer setting that does nothing at all.

[BBA2013]

Dear Lori,

thanks a lot for your reply - very good idea, as the option "prompt action" is available now and can be deactivated.

But unfortunatly, it does exactly the same thing as before.

I tried mouse recorders to do the 2000+ clicks, but that does not work either.

There are some freeware tools available, but they usually kill the meta-tags in the process, not to mention the risk of importing malware...

So, I guess, I will have to dig into my ancient VBA-books and try to get the job done via Word Makro-/VBA-programming.

best regards,

Boris

[Allta Media]

Strange, I don't get that prompt when I add the Optimizer step. I had some problems in the recent past with my Action prompts. Have you tried exporting the Action and then opening the .sequ file with a text editor (it's just an XML file) and making sure the prompt designation is really off?

[BBA2013]

Dear Lori,

promptUser =false, see below.

Does not work.

All programs that might disturbe PDF output removed from computer.

Does not work.

I am now investing some evenings into Word-VBA, making a script loop through the subdirectories over several levels (does Acrobat do that anyway?)...

Does not work.

Not yet.

It will have to...

best regards,

Boris

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Workflow xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/acrobat/workflow/2012" title="ZOPtest ORT" description="" majorVersion="1" minorVersion="0">

<Sources defaultCommand="WorkflowPlaybackSelectFolder">

  <Folder path="/nas02/quinsee$/Fachabteilung/ZOP/Standards/Standards NCH"/>

</Sources>

<Group label="Unbenannt">

  <Command name="Scan:OPT" pauseBefore="false" promptUser="false">

   <Items>

    <Item name="ApplyMRC" type="boolean" value="false"/>

    <Item name="BkgrRemove" type="integer" value="0"/>

    <Item name="ColorCompression" type="integer" value="4"/>

    <Item name="Descreen" type="boolean" value="false"/>

    <Item name="Deskew" type="boolean" value="false"/>

    <Item name="Format" type="integer" value="1"/>

    <Item name="Language" type="integer" value="-1"/>

    <Item name="MonoCompression" type="integer" value="1"/>

    <Item name="QualityLevel" type="integer" value="1"/>

    <Item name="TextSharpen" type="integer" value="0"/>

    <Item name="doOCR" type="boolean" value="false"/>

   </Items>

  </Command>

</Group>

</Workflow>

[BBA2013]

I also removed Acrobat Reader - just in case.

Did not make it work either.

[williamrocket]

I am having the same problem in version 11, but adobe tries to open word and fails, so my computer freezes with word trying over and over to open the files I've listed to be batch converted.

[Allta Media]

Are these Word files on your local hard drive or perhaps on a network drive?

[williamrocket]

They are all in a dropbox file- which i'm accessing through my finder on my computer and not through a browser. Does that make a difference?

[Allta Media]

Can you just try moving it to a local folder to see if this might be the problem?

[BBA2013]

Dear Lori,

we fixed the problem over here. With Word-VBA.

If I get the specs right, subdirectories could not be covered anyway, so converting a large number of .docs to .pdf s in several dozen folders and lots of subfolders remains a tedious task.

Regularly monitoring them even more so.

As the problem appears to occur frequently, may I suggest that Adobe adds the "include subfolders" options when fixing the bug?

best regards,

Boris

[Allta Media]

Great suggestion. You can post that in the Feature Request/Bug Report Form.

[fatcowcom]

Dear Boris,

  Good to see a Russian name here. Could you share your VBA code, please? Dealing with the same issue.

Solution at another thread was not what I was looking for.

Thanks,

M.

[BBA2013]

Working on it. 🙂

A colleague of mine wrote most of the code, so he is in charge.

Will hopefully get it online in a week or two.

[trinkalinka]

Hi everyone!

I have a semi-solution for the problem, i hope you will like it!

If you use Adobe Acrobat Pro, then you have a printer named Adobe PDF.

Go to the Devices and Printers menu in the Start menu, then right click on the Adobe PDF printer.

Then click on the "print setup" or "print settings"*.

On the Adobe PDF Settings tab set the output folder and click out the "View Adobe PDF result" and OK.

Then go to that folder, where the doc files placed, Ctrl+A and right-click->Print.

I takes pretty long time, but after that the single PDFs created.

Enjoy!

Andras

*Sorry for that guys, just I use a hungarian version of win7 so I dont know the exact english form.

[CtDave]

Lori,

Just me nattering here; but --

Something is different with Acrobat XI Pro and Office 2013.
Open Acrobat XI Pro's Preferences. Select the Category "Convert to PDF". Note that you may not have any MS Office applications listed.
Without that you cannot create an Action to operate on a "supported" file (format) as Word, Excel, etc won't be present.
.
As a data point:
--| Windows 8 (64-bit)
--| Acrobat XI Pro (via a TCS v4 subscription)
--| Office 2013 applications (via an Office 365 Home Premium subscription)

Acrobat's PDFMaker is present and functional for:
--| the Excel install
--| the Word install
--| the Outlook install
--| the PowerPoint install

For MS Access, reports can go to PDF or XPS via the MS publish to PDF routine (or exported to a Word rich text file or printed via the Acrobat installed Adobe PDF virtual printer).

For One Note Print to PDF using the Adobe PDF virtual printer. 

Be well...

[Guest]

I have noticed that also - that MS Office files are not listed as supported formats for converting documents to PDF. Hence whenever I choose batch convert and open a folder of word docx files, they are not there. It mentions on the website that acrobat will convert Word documents to PDF, but I'm unable to with Acrobat XI, though I have noticed from searching that Acrobat X did this function and Word documents were supported. Can anyone help with this?? Is this a bug, or have some features not been included in the latest version of Acrobat. 

[RickTucker]

I'm using Acrobat Pro XI on Mac OS X. From the File menu I selected Create and then Batch Create Multiple Files...

You can either use the Add Files... button, or drag your files into the window.

I just converted 53 .doc and .docx files to PDF with no interaction.

- Rick

[BBA2013]

Hi Rick,

one folder, many files. No problem.

Many folders, big problem... 😉

@all: Sorry, I still didnt get around to uploading my colleague's VBA-Code.

Quite amazing that there are no other codes available on the web for such a seemingly trivial problem.

best regards,

Boris

[Guest]

Hi Boris,

We would all appreciate it if you could upload your VBA code for converting Word docx to pdfs.  In what app do you place the code?  Couldn't be Word,

as that would have to be run for each doc that was being converted.

I have the frustrating problem of my Adobe X Pro popping up the error message :The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

when I run an action that converts all docx files in one directory to pdfs in another, for each file.  It apparently is caused by the Adobe printer that wants to know where to save the file, even though I have changed the 'prompt for Adobe pdf filename' to a junk directory on my desktop.  When I click the OK button, a different

directory is shown as the default, with a suggested filename of some meaningless letters and numbers.  If I cancel the save as, all continues as it should.

This didn't happen on my XP machine; only on my W7 64-bit.

-Laurel

[cranstjs]

I realize this is an older string, but it is a new problem to me in August 2014.

My company recently upgraded from Office 2010 to 2013 a couple of weeks ago.  I already have, and so do others, Adobe Pro X installed.  It worked fine, when combining 2 Word files and 1 PDF file into a single PDF, as an example.  Word files convert, 3 PDFs combine, Save As dialog, type in the new file name, done!  Pretty fast and easy, as it was.

Now, with Office 2013, trying to perform the same task, the entire sequence of events in the process is thrown off.  Instead of waiting until the end of the combine process after Doc 1, Adobe asks to save a PDF file and it quickly pops up the Save As window before the first file is converted.  And then, if you save in that dialog, it stays hung up on the first conversion of the document and a second Save As dialog opens.  Ultimately, I have to End Task as it is stuck in a loop at that point.  I've turned it over to local IT and they tried to reinstall Acrobat without success. 

The only work around is to, with the new Word, save the Doc files as PDFs in Word, then combine the PDF files.  This avoids the conversion process and allows it to finish, but it seems to be a bandaid to the problem.

Thanks.

[cranstjs]

Well, on an Adobe User's group, I was able to get the answer, that Acrobat X is not compatible with Word/Office 2013.  Have to upgrade to Acrobat XI.

Compatible web browsers and PDFMaker applications

[grummangy]

Hi cranstjs,

Unfortunately that is not entirely correct. I have Adobe Acrobat X and Office 365. Converting multiple word files into a single PDF is not an issue for me. My colleague who has Adobe Acrobat 9.5 however, does have problems. Stick 5 word files in to be converted into a single PDF and it gets stuck on the 2nd word file after converting the first and asking where do you want the file saved to. End result is, only the first word file is converted. If all files are PDFs, the process works without a hitch.

-Graeme

[Guest]

Hello,

I totally agree with you. The manual opening and clicking Ok and selecting the pathname is really very time-consuming. When there are few documents Adobe Reader is the best. but when dealing with number of files then a professional Batch Converter is required like DocuFreezer. It can select the entire folder and then just scan the desired extensions and convert them into PDFs all at once. I use it whenever i am dealing with bulk conversions. i got it from http://www.docufreezer.com . Try it if needed.

Hope it helped