How to? - Batch convert DOC to PDF ?

[markcres]

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me please if there is an easy way to batch convert a folder containing lots of Microsoft Word (.DOC) files to PDF format?

I know I could do this one-by-one in Word itself - but it would be very time consuming. I was hoping that there would be some part of the OS X system that could do this.

Many thanks in advance.

Mark

 

[telecomm]

This is something I've been meaning to look at for ages, and your post prompted me to figure this out.

The best I can come up with, I'm afraid, requires Acrobat. (Then makes use of an Automator action.) So it solves my problem, but probably not yours.

There should be an easy way to somehow get a "print all open documents" option, from which you could choose "Save As..." and have them all saved as PDFs. As far as I can tell, there isn't any such option in Word. You might have some luck experimenting with the Automator print actions.

If it's any consolation, this is a pain even on a PC with Acrobat Pro, since .doc files have to be handled within Word, and so all of Acrobat's batch processing features are rendered useless...

 

[JNB]

Try this.

 

[markcres]

Try this.

Thanks for for the suggestions... unfortunately it only converts the text and leaves out all formatting.

I will keep looking...!

 

[reubs]

Did anyone ever solve this issue? I've got a folder of about 150 .doc files that I need to make into PDFs, and some help would be great. I can't find any way to do this, but it seems like it should be easy.

Here's a screenie of my current set up; probably not the best approach, but it's trial and error at this point.

 

[telecomm]

I'd also like to hear more about this—the Automator workflow I had been using no longer works in Snow Leopard (as the Adobe PDF Printer is no longer available).

I'm back to saving docs as PDFs one at a time...

 

[gorn]

I'd also like to hear more about this—the Automator workflow I had been using no longer works in Snow Leopard (as the Adobe PDF Printer is no longer available).

I'm back to saving docs as PDFs one at a time...

I haven't used automator, and obviously don't know what your previous work flow was, but perhaps CUPS-PDF [ http://www.codepoetry.net/projects/cups-pdf-for-mosx ] would work in place of the acrobat printer?

 

[cmcbridejr]

I know of a fantastic application that does this... unfortunately, it is for Windows.

If you have Windows, check out eCopy Desktop (which recently changed names to eCopy PaperWorks). You just drag any document into the application and it creates a PDF. You can even create searchable PDFs with Notes and Markups.

This is one of my favorite Windows applications and is a great alternative to Adobe Acrobat (while still costing less than Acrobat).

I wish they would make this for Mac.

 

[telecomm]

I haven't used automator, and obviously don't know what your previous work flow was, but perhaps CUPS-PDF [ http://www.codepoetry.net/projects/cups-pdf-for-mosx ] would work in place of the acrobat printer?

Nice, that looks like it might do the trick. The next time I've got a bunch of docs to process I'll give this a shot. (In principle, I think this will allow for the same sort of Automator action as I had previously been using with the Acrobat PDF printer.)