Word Perfect to PDF/A bulk conversion

[Holly Deakyne]

Has anyone converted these files in bulk? Currently we can only seem to do it one file at a time using Word. It's a two-step process; open in Word converting into a .doc then saving as a PDF/A. We have too many of these files to keep doing one at a time.

Or do you just retain these are they are?

thanks,

Holly Deakyne

[Sarah Newhouse]

Holly et al.,

I am currently working through a collection containing WordStar files and have the same question! (Word isn't an ideal solution for these but does make them accessible, at least.) Interested in anything that can automate or batch process into Word or PDF.

Thanks,

Sarah Newhouse

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BitCurator Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bitcurator-use...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/d69cdd00-8022-4b30-bf9a-63b17f24ca7cn%40googlegroups.com.

[Cristina Berron]

Hello Holly, 

Yes! I did this last year through the VBA editor, which is part of the Microsoft Office applications, to test code. I used AI to help me develop a quick code to run and test conversions, which worked perfectly for me. I advise testing it first in a test folder with some practice Word documents. It doesn't delete your Word documents but instead creates second copies in PDF/A. 

Here are the steps and code. 

1. Open a blank word document and then hit ALT-FN-F11. This will open VBA editor. 
2. Go to Insert then module 
3. Place the code below in the pop-up box 

4. Sub BatchConvertToPDF_A()

       Dim file As String

       Dim folderPath As String

       folderPath = "C:\Your\Folder\Path\Here\"  

   
   

       

       file = Dir(folderPath & "*.docx")

       

       Do While file <> ""

           Dim doc As Document

           Set doc = Documents.Open(folderPath & file)

           

           ' Optional: Refresh layout

           doc.Repaginate

           

           ' Export as PDF/A

           doc.ExportAsFixedFormat _

               OutputFileName:=folderPath & Replace(file, ".docx", ".pdf"), _

               ExportFormat:=wdExportFormatPDF, _

               OpenAfterExport:=False, _

               OptimizeFor:=wdExportOptimizeForPrint, _

               Range:=wdExportAllDocument, _

               Item:=wdExportDocumentContent, _

               IncludeDocProps:=True, _

               KeepIRM:=True, _

               CreateBookmarks:=wdExportCreateHeadingBookmarks, _

               DocStructureTags:=True, _

               BitmapMissingFonts:=True, _

               UseISO19005_1:=True  ' Enables PDF/A-1b format

           

           doc.Close False

           file = Dir

       Loop

   End Sub

   
   

5. Hit F5 to run. It should work. It will create a second version and not delete your word documents.

Best, 

Cristina Berron

Cristina Berron  

University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) MSIS | 2023

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) BA. Classics | 2019

Email: berronc...@gmail.com 

[Holly Deakyne]

FYI, I ended up finding this post that had a script to run on a computer with LibreOffice installed and it worked.  https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/boea7t/batch_convert_pptx_to_pdf_with_automator/

I had to use ReNamer first on my files in order to get a usable extension. Because Word Perfect file names look like 88POLI.433 and DROID said the file format was .433. Renaming to replace the original dot and add ".wpd" made the computer recognize them as .wpd. 

Holly