Bulk converting Office documents to PDF

By Leo Gaggl

April 9, 2012

When you need to convert multiple documents to PDF for distribution (or from one Office format to another) there are a few utilities around. The most workable I found is the UNOCONV utility which is build on top of LibreOffice / OpenOffice. This uses the OpenOffice conversion facilities rather than a simple PDF print driver.

On Ubuntu it can be installed via Software Center or via apt-get from the core repositories.
sudo apt-get install unoconv
Combined with the -exec option of the Unix find command this makes conversion of whole directory structures a breeze.
#find all Word Documents and convert to PDF find . -name "*.doc*" -exec unoconv -f pdf {} \; #find all Powerpoint Documents and convert to PDF find . -name "*.ppt*" -exec unoconv -f pdf {} \;
To show all the possible conversion formats you can use:
unoconv --show
The following list of document formats are currently available:

bib – BibTeX [.bib]
doc – Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP [.doc]
doc6 – Microsoft Word 6.0 [.doc]
doc95 – Microsoft Word 95 [.doc]
docbook – DocBook [.xml]
html – HTML Document (OpenOffice.org Writer) [.html]
odt – ODF Text Document [.odt]
ott – Open Document Text [.ott]
ooxml – Microsoft Office Open XML [.xml]
pdf – Portable Document Format [.pdf]
rtf – Rich Text Format [.rtf]
latex – LaTeX 2e [.ltx]
sdw – StarWriter 5.0 [.sdw]
sdw4 – StarWriter 4.0 [.sdw]
sdw3 – StarWriter 3.0 [.sdw]
stw – Open Office.org 1.0 Text Document Template [.stw]
sxw – Open Office.org 1.0 Text Document [.sxw]
text – Text Encoded [.txt]
mediawiki – MediaWiki [.txt]
txt – Text [.txt]
uot – Unified Office Format text [.uot]
vor – StarWriter 5.0 Template [.vor]
vor4 – StarWriter 4.0 Template [.vor]
vor3 – StarWriter 3.0 Template [.vor]
xhtml – XHTML Document [.html]

The following list of graphics formats are currently available:

bmp – Windows Bitmap [.bmp]
emf – Enhanced Metafile [.emf]
eps – Encapsulated PostScript [.eps]
gif – Graphics Interchange Format [.gif]
html – HTML Document (OpenOffice.org Draw) [.html]
jpg – Joint Photographic Experts Group [.jpg]
met – OS/2 Metafile [.met]
odd – OpenDocument Drawing [.odd]
otg – OpenDocument Drawing Template [.otg]
pbm – Portable Bitmap [.pbm]
pct – Mac Pict [.pct]
pdf – Portable Document Format [.pdf]
pgm – Portable Graymap [.pgm]
png – Portable Network Graphic [.png]
ppm – Portable Pixelmap [.ppm]
ras – Sun Raster Image [.ras]
std – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing Template [.std]
svg – Scalable Vector Graphics [.svg]
svm – StarView Metafile [.svm]
swf – Macromedia Flash (SWF) [.swf]
sxd – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing [.sxd]
sxd3 – StarDraw 3.0 [.sxd]
sxd5 – StarDraw 5.0 [.sxd]
tiff – Tagged Image File Format [.tiff]
vor – StarDraw 5.0 Template [.vor]
vor3 – StarDraw 3.0 Template [.vor]
wmf – Windows Metafile [.wmf]
xhtml – XHTML [.xhtml]
xpm – X PixMap [.xpm]

The following list of presentation formats are currently available:

bmp – Windows Bitmap [.bmp]
emf – Enhanced Metafile [.emf]
eps – Encapsulated PostScript [.eps]
gif – Graphics Interchange Format [.gif]
html – HTML Document (OpenOffice.org Impress) [.html]
jpg – Joint Photographic Experts Group [.jpg]
met – OS/2 Metafile [.met]
odg – ODF Drawing (Impress) [.odg]
odp – ODF Presentation [.odp]
otp – ODF Presentation Template [.otp]
pbm – Portable Bitmap [.pbm]
pct – Mac Pict [.pct]
pdf – Portable Document Format [.pdf]
pgm – Portable Graymap [.pgm]
png – Portable Network Graphic [.png]
pot – Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP Template [.pot]
ppm – Portable Pixelmap [.ppm]
ppt – Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP [.ppt]
pwp – PlaceWare [.pwp]
ras – Sun Raster Image [.ras]
sda – StarDraw 5.0 (OpenOffice.org Impress) [.sda]
sdd – StarImpress 5.0 [.sdd]
sdd3 – StarDraw 3.0 (OpenOffice.org Impress) [.sdd]
sdd4 – StarImpress 4.0 [.sdd]
sxd – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing (OpenOffice.org Impress) [.sxd]
sti – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Presentation Template [.sti]
svg – Scalable Vector Graphics [.svg]
svm – StarView Metafile [.svm]
swf – Macromedia Flash (SWF) [.swf]
sxi – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Presentation [.sxi]
tiff – Tagged Image File Format [.tiff]
uop – Unified Office Format presentation [.uop]
vor – StarImpress 5.0 Template [.vor]
vor3 – StarDraw 3.0 Template (OpenOffice.org Impress) [.vor]
vor4 – StarImpress 4.0 Template [.vor]
vor5 – StarDraw 5.0 Template (OpenOffice.org Impress) [.vor]
wmf – Windows Metafile [.wmf]
xhtml – XHTML [.xml]
xpm – X PixMap [.xpm]

The following list of spreadsheet formats are currently available:

csv – Text CSV [.csv]
dbf – dBASE [.dbf]
dif – Data Interchange Format [.dif]
html – HTML Document (OpenOffice.org Calc) [.html]
ods – ODF Spreadsheet [.ods]
ooxml – Microsoft Excel 2003 XML [.xml]
ots – ODF Spreadsheet Template [.ots]
pdf – Portable Document Format [.pdf]
sdc – StarCalc 5.0 [.sdc]
sdc4 – StarCalc 4.0 [.sdc]
sdc3 – StarCalc 3.0 [.sdc]
slk – SYLK [.slk]
stc – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet Template [.stc]
sxc – OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet [.sxc]
uos – Unified Office Format spreadsheet [.uos]
vor3 – StarCalc 3.0 Template [.vor]
vor4 – StarCalc 4.0 Template [.vor]
vor – StarCalc 5.0 Template [.vor]
xhtml – XHTML [.xhtml]
xls – Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP [.xls]
xls5 – Microsoft Excel 5.0 [.xls]
xls95 – Microsoft Excel 95 [.xls]
xlt – Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP Template [.xlt]
xlt5 – Microsoft Excel 5.0 Template [.xlt]
xlt95 – Microsoft Excel 95 Template [.xlt]