Batch Convert Word Documents to PDF with Office 2011?

[Friedlemar]

Hello all,

I recently upgraded to Lion and to the latest version of MS Office (from 2008 to 2011), and it has played havoc with parts of my normal working routine. I'm not sure which software upgrade was responsible, but I had a very handy Automator workflow into which I could drag one or more Word documents (.doc or .docx) and it would convert them into PDFs, saving them in the same folder as the original documents. This was accomplished with a single Automator action that was installed with Office 2008, "Convert Format of Word Documents."

With my new software, many of the MS Office Automator actions don't work, or don't work very well. "Convert Format" works fine for some file formats, but refuses to convert to PDF files: it just gives an error. There is also an Automator action, "Save Word Documents;" since Word 2011 can save directly to PDF files, I figured I'd try that. No dice; another error.

In short, I've been unable to reconstruct this very simple (and very handy) script. Does anyone have suggestions or advice on a workaround using other Automator actions, Applescript, or whatever, so that I can drag Word files into it as input and have them converted into PDFs?

 

[2499723]

Unfortunately, I cannot provide a solution to your problem, but I wanted to speak up and say I have the exact same problem and would appreciate anyone's suggestions to work around this. Thanks!

 

[professore]

Don't know if this is solved, but mine works fine

When I look in Automator, there is a single Automator action that says "Convert Format of Word Documents". When I look at it, it has a drop-down that allows various choices, including .pdf.

The script works perfectly for me. Unfortunately, I don't know how it got there... it is simply extant.

I am using Lion + Office 2011.

 

[enigma2k]

I really hate the MS Automator scripts because I have tried the "Convert Format of Excel" script and it only works for non Macro files. Additionally every for every pdf it creates, it also creates an extra folder.

 

[steffanstringer]

Doesn't work with Home & Student edition

Looks like you need to have a version of MS Office 2011 higher than Home and Student edition....http://www.agentjim.com/MVP/Automator/IntroToAutomator.html

That's what I have got and the Automator workflow fails every time I try to run it.