How to convert PDF to Word using the Acrobat SDK?

Question

My .Net application needs to programmatically convert a PDF document to Word format.

I appreciated several products and found Acrobat X Pro , which allows saving as an option, where we can save the document in Word / Excel format. I tried using the Acrobat SDK, but could not find the documentation I needed from where to start.

I looked at their IAC sample, but could not figure out how to call the menu item and make it execute the save as parameter.

Answer 1

You can do this with Acrobat X Pro, but you need to use the javascript API in C #.

AcroPDDoc pdfd = new AcroPDDoc(); pdfd.Open(sourceDoc.FileFullPath); Object jsObj = pdfd.GetJSObject(); Type jsType = pdfd.GetType(); //have to use acrobat javascript api because, acrobat object[] saveAsParam = { "newFile.doc", "com.adobe.acrobat.doc", "", false, false }; jsType.InvokeMember("saveAs",BindingFlags.InvokeMethod | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance,null, jsObj, saveAsParam, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); 

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I did something very similar with WinPython x64 2.7.6.3 and Acrobat X Pro and used the JSObject interface to convert PDF files to DOCX. Essentially the same solution as jle .

The following is a complete snippet of code that converts a set of PDF files into DOCX:

 # gets all files under ROOT_INPUT_PATH with FILE_EXTENSION and tries to extract text from them into ROOT_OUTPUT_PATH with same filename as the input file but with INPUT_FILE_EXTENSION replaced by OUTPUT_FILE_EXTENSION from win32com.client import Dispatch from win32com.client.dynamic import ERRORS_BAD_CONTEXT import winerror # try importing scandir and if found, use it as it a few magnitudes of an order faster than stock os.walk try: from scandir import walk except ImportError: from os import walk import fnmatch import sys import os ROOT_INPUT_PATH = None ROOT_OUTPUT_PATH = None INPUT_FILE_EXTENSION = "*.pdf" OUTPUT_FILE_EXTENSION = ".docx" def acrobat_extract_text(f_path, f_path_out, f_basename, f_ext): avDoc = Dispatch("AcroExch.AVDoc") # Connect to Adobe Acrobat # Open the input file (as a pdf) ret = avDoc.Open(f_path, f_path) assert(ret) # FIXME: Documentation says "-1 if the file was opened successfully, 0 otherwise", but this is a bool in practise? pdDoc = avDoc.GetPDDoc() dst = os.path.join(f_path_out, ''.join((f_basename, f_ext))) # Adobe documentation says "For that reason, you must rely on the documentation to know what functionality is available through the JSObject interface. For details, see the JavaScript for Acrobat API Reference" jsObject = pdDoc.GetJSObject() # Here you can save as many other types by using, for instance: "com.adobe.acrobat.xml" jsObject.SaveAs(dst, "com.adobe.acrobat.docx") # NOTE: If you want to save the file as a .doc, use "com.adobe.acrobat.doc" pdDoc.Close() avDoc.Close(True) # We want this to close Acrobat, as otherwise Acrobat is going to refuse processing any further files after a certain threshold of open files are reached (for example 50 PDFs) del pdDoc if __name__ == "__main__": assert(5 == len(sys.argv)), sys.argv # <script name>, <script_file_input_path>, <script_file_input_extension>, <script_file_output_path>, <script_file_output_extension> #$ python get.docx.from.multiple.pdf.py 'C:\input' '*.pdf' 'C:\output' '.docx' # NOTE: If you want to save the file as a .doc, use '.doc' instead of '.docx' here and ensure you use "com.adobe.acrobat.doc" in the jsObject.SaveAs call ROOT_INPUT_PATH = sys.argv[1] INPUT_FILE_EXTENSION = sys.argv[2] ROOT_OUTPUT_PATH = sys.argv[3] OUTPUT_FILE_EXTENSION = sys.argv[4] # tuples are of schema (path_to_file, filename) matching_files = ((os.path.join(_root, filename), os.path.splitext(filename)[0]) for _root, _dirs, _files in walk(ROOT_INPUT_PATH) for filename in fnmatch.filter(_files, INPUT_FILE_EXTENSION)) # patch ERRORS_BAD_CONTEXT as per https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-win32/2002-March/000265.html global ERRORS_BAD_CONTEXT ERRORS_BAD_CONTEXT.append(winerror.E_NOTIMPL) for filename_with_path, filename_without_extension in matching_files: print "Processing '{}'".format(filename_without_extension) acrobat_extract_text(filename_with_path, ROOT_OUTPUT_PATH, filename_without_extension, OUTPUT_FILE_EXTENSION) 

Answer 3

Adobe does not support PDF to Word conversion unless you use their Acrobat PDF client. Maeaning you cannot do this with your SDK or command line call. You can do it manually.