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I would like to know about PDFTron component that I can use to convert Word to PDF. We would require to use this component in one of our product which is hosted on windows Server. The application is using dot net version 3.5 but we are also considering JAVA. We want to build a module where our application user could generate a PDF document from a Word document.
Most importantly we would like to know is
1) After using the PDFtron control do we require Microsoft word installation on the server to run this utility.
2) Post installation is there any known issues or concerns or what will be the risk of installing this control on the server side.
3) Which components add-ons should we use?
PDFNet can convert MS Word document to PDF in two ways:
a) Via MS Office interop
b) Via PDFTron Print driver.
Both approaches are illustrated in Convert sample project
(http://www.pdftron.com/pdfnet/samplecode.html#Convert) that comes as part of PDFNet SDK (http://www.pdftron.com/pdfnet/downloads.html).
For server conversion we recommend Option a). Despite of what is widely assumed about ‘Office Automation’ our use of Office API is very limited and we found it to be fairly safe for server use. For example, we found that Microsoft is using the same mechanism as part of SharePoint Word Automation Services (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/ee558830(v=office.14).aspx), which is API mainly intended for server side use. There are still some potential security issues (such as scripting), however we make sure to disable any features that could cause problems.
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As an alternative to using MS Office you could also use any other app that can print office files (e.g. Wordpad in Windows 7 or higher would do the job - no need to install additional software) and print to PDFNet Virtual Printer Driver (as shown in Convert sample that comes as part of the SDK). Unfortunately we found that third party app usually do not implement all office feaures or are not as relaible as office.
> Post installation is there any known issues or concerns or what will be the risk of installing this control on the server side.
If you are planning to use PDFNet within ASP.NET or Service, please go over the following article to rule out common configuration issues:
Ø Which component should we use and what is the best price ?
The pricing would depend on the license type you are looking for (http://www.pdftron.com/store/licensing.html, http://www.pdftron.com/store/index.php).
Assuming that you would use PDFNet for internal use only on a small number of servers the best option would be Enterprise CPU licensing. The pricing for this option is available online: http://www.pdftron.com/store/pdfnet.html