Is an Microsoft Office installation on the server needed for MS-Office-to-PDF conversion?

[Former Community Member]

Haven't found an explicit answer to this question in the specs or Help.

But: having no MS-office installed on our test-server AND
       NOT having checked the "native support", converting MS-Office files just fails.

Dilettanto

[Jasmin_Charbonn]

Well, something needs to do the conversion.

If you want to convert Office to PDF, you need either MS-Office or OpenOffice installed.

Jasmin

[Former Community Member]

Jasmin,

- PDF Generator got no configuration, where no native application needs to be installed?

- What is then the additional benefit of using LiveCycle PDF Generator ES?
   - MS Office 2007 itself is capable of writing PDF

- There might be licensing issues installing MS Office on an server
  - i am currently not aware of any licensing deal from Microsoft allowing this
    (This used to be different)

- Would OpenOffice be able to convert MS-Office 2003 AND MS-Office 2007 documents?

[Jasmin_Charbonn]

"PDF Generator got no configuration, where no native application needs to be installed?"

Yes it does. If you want to convert images (jpg, tiff), or postscript files you don't need native applications.

"What is then the additional benefit of using LiveCycle PDF Generator ES?"

Automation! You might need to automatically convert a word doc into a PDF to start a review, add security, save for archive, ,etc.

"Would OpenOffice be able to convert MS-Office 2003 AND MS-Office 2007 documents?"

I believe it can.

Jasmin