Office2pdf is a Linux daemon program that automatically converts Microsoft Office Attachments (currently .doc and .xls; support for .pps and .ppt will be added later). You send it a mail with office attachment, and a minute later, it will reply with a mail containing your documents converted into pdf.
A sample office2pdf is running at the following address: office2pdf@office2pdf.lll.lu.
The office2pdf daemon will convert the attached .doc or .xls to pdf, and send you back a reply with the converted documents attached.
Donwload office2pdf-0.10.6.tar.gz here. Installation instructions are available.
Office2pdf runs Microsoft's own Word and Excel viewers within a wine (windows emulator) session, and instructs them to print out the documents to a postscript file. This postscript file is then converted to pdf using the pstopdf utility.
Office2pdf runs wine on a Vnc or Xvfb virtual display, hence the physical display of the machine stays available for other uses. No need to set a machine aside exclusively for office2pdf.
As Office2pdf runs on wine, no windows software licenses are needed (appart from the viewers which are freely downloadable from Micro$oft, and the windows fonts which can still be downloaded from sourceforge)
A mailing list is available.
This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.0.
| Name/URL | Comments |
| doc2pdf | The converter which inspired this work. However, doc2pdf's downside is that it needs a windows machine to run, which becomes unavailable for any other use while office2pdf runs (no purely virtual display available on Windows). |
| CERN's converter convert@documents.cern.ch | Send a mail with subject "doc2pdf" to this address, with your
word file attached. Other conversions, such as "doc2ps" are also
available. Soon after, you'll receive a confirmation mail,
confirming the reception of your request, and a couple of minutes
later you'll receive another mail, which contains an URL pointing to
the converted documents. No local (downloadable) installation of the software is available. |
| Carnegie Mellon's "Tom Server" | Upload your file via a web form, the answer is then available
immediately for download. As far as I could see, no local (downloadable) installation of software is available. |
| Pdflator | Upload a document via its web form, and a couple of seconds
later, you'll receive the answer via mail attachment.
(CAUTION: don't follow that link if you are from Texas No local (downloadable) installation of the software is available. |
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