How to Convert word document to pdf in Nodejs| Javascript example

In this post, You will learn how to convert Docx files to pdf documents in JavaScript and nodejs.

Docx/doc are document file formats from Microsoft, that contains images, text, tables, and styles PDF files are from Adobe company, which is a separate format for representing the content of images, texts, and styles

There are a lot of online tools to do the conversion from doc to pdf. Sometimes, As a programmer, you need to have a conversion of different formats in the JavaScript/NodeJS applications.

JavaScript/NodeJS offers multiple ways to convert using npm packages

• docx-to-pdf
• libreoffice-convert

You can also check other posts on npm command deprecate option is deprecated

#How to Convert word document to pdf in Nodejs application

First, Create a Nodejs application from scratch.

Let’s create a nodejs application from scratch using the npm init -y command in a new folder

B:\blog\jswork\nodework\doctopdf>npm init -y
Wrote to B:\blog\jswork\nodework\doctopdf\package.json:

{
  "name": "doctopdf",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

This creates a package.json as follows

{
  "name": "doctopdf",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

#convert docx to pdf using docx-pdf library

docx-pdf is a simple library to convert Docx to a pdf document.

First, Install Docx-pdf npm library

npm install Docx-pdf --save

This will add a dependency in package.json as follows

{
  "dependencies": {
    "docx-pdf": "0.0.1"
  }
}

In javascript, import docx-pdf using the required for ES5 modules

var converter = require("docx-pdf");

convert objects accepts

• input file which is a word document
• output file is the name of a pdf document
• callback which has err for error messages for conversion failed and result in successful conversion
• a result is an object containing a filename attribute and the value is the pdf document name and path

var converter = require("docx-pdf");

converter("test.docx", "output.pdf", function (err, result) {
  if (err) {
    console.log("Converting Doc to PDF  failed", err);
  }
  console.log("Converting Doc to PDF succesfull", result);
});

And same code was written with async and await keywords for the asynchronous process.

#convert docx to pdf with async/await

This will be useful for bigger files of sizes

The declared function which accepts input and output filename It returns the promise object with reject for failed conversions and resolve for successful conversions. And, docxConverter logic calls inside the async keyword with an anonymous function for asynchronous processing.

    async function ConvertDocToPdf(inputfile, outputfile) {
            return new Promise((resolve, reject) =>{
                        const inputPath = path.join(__dirname, "test.docx");
        const outputPath = path.join(__dirname, `/test.pdf`);
        let docData = await fs.readFile(inputPath)
                docxConverter(inputfile, outputfile, (err, result) => {
                    return err ?
                        reject(err) :
                        resolve(result)
                })
            })
        }

You need to call the same function with the await keyword

await ConvertDocToPdf("test.docx", "test.pdf");

It is a simple library, the only disadvantage is not able to convert formatting styles.

#libreoffice-convert npm package

libreoffice is an open-source office package for managing office documents.

libreoffice-convert is an npm package in nodejs that provides manipulation of word documents.

First, install libreoffice-convert npm package using the npm install command

npm install libreoffice-convert --save

Example code to convert docx to pdf using the libreoffice-convert package:

const libre = require("libreoffice-convert");
const path = require("path");
const fs = require("fs");
async function ConvertDocToPdf() {
  try {
    const inputPath = path.join(__dirname, "test.docx");
    const outputPath = path.join(__dirname, `/test.pdf`);
    let docData = await fs.readFile(inputPath);
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      libre.convert(docData, ".pdf", undefined, (err, done) => {
        if (err) {
          reject("Conversion Failed");
        }
        fs.writeFileSync(outputPath, done);
        resolve("Convertion successfull");
      });
    });
  } catch (err) {
    console.log("Error in input reading", err);
  }
}

a sequence of steps for the above code

• Defined function with async keyword for asynchronous processing

• import libreoffice-convert, fs, and path modules into cod

  e

• read the input file using readFile method of fs module in NodeJS

• libre.convert the docx to pdf file

• conversion code is wrapped in a promise object

• for conversion failed cases, the reject promise is returned

• the promise is resolved for a successful conversion,

• Finally written output pdf file using the writeFileSync method

#Conclusion

To Sum up, Learned how to Convert word to pdf in nodejs in multiple ways.