I am working on an web page that runs on my companies intranet. I want to create a javascript to create a PDF file from an MS Word file on the users network that will not promt for the user for a location or file name. Bascially the user will tell the code which word file needs to be converted and the program will convert the file and save it to a specific location on the network.

Can anybody tell me the best way to do this, and any recommendations on writing software?

Thanks!!

When you say using JavaScript do you mean creating the PDF on the client or the server?

I have done this on the server by installing a special server-side version of Adobe PDFCreator which allows you to drop a file into a folder and pick up the PDF from a different folder. The client uploaded a Word file in the usual manner and the server-side script dropped it in the folder. The client was then shown a link to grab the PDF.

If you want to transform on the client you'll need each client to install a Word to PDF add-in. These usually involve printing to a special print driver that actually transforms the printing instructions to a PDF. For this you'll need to automate Word using client-side script and have low security settings in the browser to allow opening and saving files from the client's hard drive.

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Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

Ya know I would love to be allowed to do this on the server side, but unfortunately that is not an option. So I am referring to creating the PDF on the client side. The Word to PDF add-in is the type of thing I am looking for. I have been playing with several of the free PDF writers out there (since I have to install this thing on several users machines I need to keep the cost low) and I wrote a javascript code that is able to 'print' the word document to the PDF writer but I keep running into problems because either a 'save-as' dialog box appears and the user doesn't know what to do with it or PDF doesn't get created completely before the javascript places it in the correct network folder.

Would you have any suggestions on what 'Word to PDF' add in and associated javascript I should use? Using ActiveXObject is fine.

Thanks!!

I seem to remember I used PDF995 (955?) but I also ran into problems automating Word. You could set the default output folder and specify the PDF name programatically but there were a number of issues. If background printing was on then there could be a delay. So I turned that off, and re-enabled afterwards if needed. I also used to poll the output folder for the file and only show the user the link when it was available. You also need to try/catch everything because if Word pops up a dialogue error box and it's invisible the user has had it. It worked okay but was too unreliable in the long run that's why we moved to the server-side alternative.

Basically you just have to explain this to the powers that be, if you want a client-side solution you are going to have to put up with a few helpdesk calls.

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Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)