Convert documents into different formats

🤖/document/convert converts documents into different formats.

Note: This Robot can convert files to PDF, but cannot convert PDFs to different formats. If you want to convert PDFs to say, JPEG or TIFF, use 🤖/image/resize. If you want to turn them into text files or recognize (OCR) them to make them searchable, reach out, as we have a new Robot in the works for this.

Sometimes, a certain file type might not support what you are trying to accomplish. Perhaps your company is trying to automate document formatting, but it only works with docx, so all your docs need to be converted. Or maybe your stored jpg files are taking up too much space and you want a lighter format. Whatever the case, we have you covered.

Using this Robot, you can bypass the issues that certain file types may bring, by converting your file into the most suitable format. This also works in conjunction with our other Robots, allowing for even greater versatility when using our services.

Warning: A general rule of this Robot is that converting files into an alien format category will result in an error. For example, SRT files can be converted into the VTT format, but not to an image.

The following file formats can be converted from:

doc
docx
html
xhtml
xml
jpg
gif
png
svg
ai
eps
ps
txt
text
csv
xls
xlsx
xla
oda
odt
odd
ott
ppt
pptx
ppz
pps
pot
rtf
rtx
latex

Parameters

use

String / Array of Strings / Objectrequired
Specifies which Step(s) to use as input.
- You can pick any names for Steps except ":original" (reserved for user uploads handled by Transloadit)
- You can provide several Steps as input with arrays:
```
"use": [
  ":original",
  "encoded",
  "resized"
]
```
💡 That’s likely all you need to know about use, but you can view advanced use cases:
› Advanced use cases
- Step bundling. Some Robots can gather several Step results for a single invocation. For example, 🤖/file/compress would normally create one archive for each file passed to it. If you'd set bundle_steps to true, however, it will create one archive containing all the result files from all Steps you give it. To enable bundling, provide an object like the one below to the use parameter:
```
"use": {
  "steps": [
    ":original",
    "encoded",
    "resized"
  ],
  "bundle_steps": true
}
```
  This is also a crucial parameter for 🤖/video/adaptive, otherwise you'll generate 1 playlist for each viewing quality.
  Keep in mind that all input Steps must be present in your Template. If one of them is missing (for instance it is rejected by a filter), no result is generated because the Robot waits indefinitely for all input Steps to be finished.
  
  Here’s a demo that showcases Step bundling.
- Group by original. Sticking with 🤖/file/compress example, you can set group_by_original to true, in order to create a separate archive for each of your uploaded or imported files, instead of creating one archive containing all originals (or one per resulting file). This is important for for 🤖/media/playlist where you'd typically set:
```
"use": {
  "steps": [
    "segmented"
  ],
  "bundle_steps": true,
  "group_by_original": true
}
```
- Fields. You can be more discriminatory by only using files that match a field name by setting the fields property. When this array is specified, the corresponding Step will only be executed for files submitted through one of the given field names, which correspond with the strings in the name attribute of the HTML file input field tag for instance. When using a back-end SDK, it corresponds with myFieldName1 in e.g.: $transloadit->addFile('myFieldName1', './chameleon.jpg').
  
  This parameter is set to true by default, meaning all fields are accepted.
  
  Example:
```
"use": {
  "steps": [ ":original" ],
  "fields": [ "myFieldName1" ]
}
```
- Use as. Sometimes Robots take several inputs. For instance, 🤖/video/merge can create a slideshow from audio and images. You can map different Steps to the appropriate inputs.
  
  Example:
```
"use": {
  "steps": [
    { "name": "audio_encoded", "as": "audio" },
    { "name": "images_resized", "as": "image" }
  ]
}
```
  Sometimes the ordering is important, for instance, with our concat Robots. In these cases, you can add an index that starts at 1. You can also optionally filter by the multipart field name. Like in this example, where all files are coming from the same source (end-user uploads), but with different <input> names:
  
  Example:
```
"use": {
  "steps": [
    { "name": ":original", "fields": "myFirstVideo", "as": "video_1" },
    { "name": ":original", "fields": "mySecondVideo", "as": "video_2" },
    { "name": ":original", "fields": "myThirdVideo", "as": "video_3" }
  ]
}
```
  For times when it is not apparent where we should put the file, you can use Assembly Variables to be specific. For instance, you may want to pass a text file to 🤖/image/resize to burn the text in an image, but you are burning multiple texts, so where do we put the text file? We specify it via ${use.text_1}, to indicate the first text file that was passed.
  
  Example:
```
"watermarked": {
  "robot": "/image/resize",
  "use"  : {
    "steps": [
      { "name": "resized", "as": "base" },
      { "name": "transcribed", "as": "text" },
    ],
  },
  "text": [
    {
      "text"  : "Hi there",
      "valign": "top",
      "align" : "left",
    },
    {
      "text"    : "From the 'transcribed' Step: ${use.text_1}",
      "valign"  : "bottom",
      "align"   : "right",
      "x_offset": 16,
      "y_offset": -10,
    }
  ]
}
```
format

Stringrequired

The desired format for document conversion. We support the following values: doc, docx, html, xhtml, xml, pdf, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, svg, ai, eps, ps, txt, text, csv, xls, xlsx, xla, oda, odt, odd, ott, ppt, pptx, ppz, pps, pot, rtf, rtx, latex, vtt and srt.
markdown_format

String ⋅ default: "gfm"

Markdown can be represented in several variants, so when using this Robot to transform Markdown into HTML please specify which revision is being used.

Currently this parameter can only take in the gfm and commonmark variants of Markdown.
markdown_theme

String ⋅ default: "github"

This parameter overhauls your Markdown files styling based on several canned presets. Valid values include github and bare.
pdf_margin

String ⋅ default: "6.25mm,6.25mm,14.11mm,6.25mm"

PDF Paper margins, separated by , and with units.

We support the following unit values: px, in, cm, mm.

Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from html.
pdf_print_background

Boolean ⋅ default: true

Print PDF background graphics.

Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from html.
pdf_format

String ⋅ default: "Letter"

PDF paper format.

We support the following values: Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Ledger, A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6.

Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from html.
pdf_display_header_footer

Boolean ⋅ default: false

Display PDF header and footer.

Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from html.
pdf_header_template

String
HTML template for the PDF print header.

Should be valid HTML markup with following classes used to inject printing values into them:
- date formatted print date
- title document title
- url document location
- pageNumber current page number
- totalPages total pages in the document
Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from html, and requires pdf_display_header_footer to be enabled.

To change the formatting of the HTML element, the font-size must be specified in a wrapper. For example, to center the page number at the top of a page you'd use the following HTML for the header template:
```
  <div style="font-size: 15px; width: 100%; text-align: center;"><span class="pageNumber"></span>"></span></div>
```
pdf_footer_template

String
HTML template for the PDF print footer.

Should use the same format as the pdf_header_template.

Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from html, and requires pdf_display_header_footer to be enabled.

To change the formatting of the HTML element, the font-size must be specified in a wrapper. For example, to center the page number in the footer you'd use the following HTML for the footer template:
```
  <div style="font-size: 15px; width: 100%; text-align: center;"><span class="pageNumber"></span>"></span></div>
```

Convert documents into different formats

Parameters

`use`

`format`

`markdown_format`

`markdown_theme`

`pdf_margin`

`pdf_print_background`

`pdf_format`

`pdf_display_header_footer`

`pdf_header_template`

`pdf_footer_template`

Demos

Related blog posts