# Convert documents into different formats
Robot: `/document/convert`
🤖/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](/docs/robots/image-resize.md). 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 (and vice versa), but not to an image.
The following file formats can be converted from:
* `ai`
* `csv`
* `doc`
* `docx`
* `eps`
* `gif`
* `html`
* `jpg`
* `latex`
* `md`
* `oda`
* `odd`
* `odt`
* `ott`
* `png`
* `pot`
* `pps`
* `ppt`
* `pptx`
* `ppz`
* `ps`
* `rtf`
* `rtx`
* `srt`
* `svg`
* `text`
* `txt`
* `vtt`
* `xhtml`
* `xla`
* `xls`
* `xlsx`
* `xml`
Stage: ga
## Usage example
Convert uploaded files to PDF documents:
```json
{
"steps": {
"converted": {
"robot": "/document/convert",
"use": ":original",
"format": "pdf"
}
}
}
```
## Parameters
* `interpolate`: Controls whether Assembly Variables are interpolated for individual instruction fields.
By default, most Robot instruction fields interpolate Assembly Variables. Set this to `false` to treat every instruction field as literal text, or set an individual field path to `false` to treat only that field as literal text. For Robot-specific fields that are literal by default, set this to `true` or set that field path to `true` to opt back into interpolation.
Use field names such as `path`, or dotted paths such as `ffmpeg.vf` for nested objects.
* `output_meta`: Allows you to specify a set of metadata that is more expensive on CPU power to calculate, and thus is disabled by default to keep your Assemblies processing fast.
For images, you can add `"has_transparency": true` in this object to extract if the image contains transparent parts and `"dominant_colors": true` to extract an array of hexadecimal color codes from the image.
For images, you can also add `"blurhash": true` to extract a [BlurHash](https://blurha.sh) string — a compact representation of a placeholder for the image, useful for showing a blurred preview while the full image loads.
For videos, you can add the `"colorspace": true` parameter to extract the colorspace of the output video.
For videos, you can also add `"interlaced": true` to detect whether the video is interlaced. This combines the cheap ffprobe `field_order` flag with a bounded `idet` sampling pass over the first frames of the source, exposing `interlaced`, `field_order`, and a diagnostic `interlace_detection` object under `file.meta`. This is computationally expensive and billed accordingly.
For audio, you can add `"mean_volume": true` to get a single value representing the mean average volume of the audio file.
You can also set this to `false` to skip metadata extraction and speed up transcoding.
* `user_meta`: Adds custom metadata to each file emitted by this Robot without modifying the file’s contents.
The values are merged with any existing `user_meta` carried by the input file. If both objects contain the same key, this Robot’s value takes precedence. Assembly Variables are supported, for example `{ "internal_file_id": "${file.id}" }`.
* `result`: Whether the results of this Step should be present in the Assembly Status JSON
* `queue`: Setting the queue to 'batch', manually downgrades the priority of jobs for this step to avoid consuming Priority job slots for jobs that don't need zero queue waiting times
* `force_accept`: Force a Robot to accept a file type it would have ignored.
By default, Robots ignore files they are not familiar with.
[🤖/video/encode](/docs/robots/video-encode.md), for
example, will happily ignore input images.
With the `force_accept` parameter set to `true`, you can force Robots to accept all files thrown at them.
This will typically lead to errors and should only be used for debugging or combatting edge cases.
* `ignore_errors`: Ignore errors during specific phases of processing.
Setting this to `["meta"]` will cause the Robot to ignore errors during metadata extraction.
Setting this to `["execute"]` will cause the Robot to ignore errors during the main execution phase.
Setting this to `true` is equivalent to `["meta", "execute"]` and will ignore errors in both phases.
* `use`: 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:
```json
{
"use": [
":original",
"encoded",
"resized"
]
}
```
* You can also tag input Steps with `as` to pass semantic intent to robots:
```json
{
"use": [
{
"name": ":original",
"as": "image"
},
{
"name": ":original",
"as": "mask"
}
]
}
```
> [!Tip]
> That's likely all you need to know about `use`, but you can view [Advanced use cases](/docs/topics/use-parameter.md).
* `format`: The desired format for document conversion.
* `markdown_format`: Markdown can be represented in several [variants](https://www.iana.org/assignments/markdown-variants/markdown-variants.xhtml), so when using this Robot to transform Markdown into HTML please specify which revision is being used.
* `markdown_theme`: This parameter overhauls your Markdown files styling based on several canned presets.
* `pdf_margin`: 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`: Print PDF background graphics.
Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from `html`.
* `pdf_format`: PDF paper format.
Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from `html`.
* `pdf_display_header_footer`: Display PDF header and footer.
Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from `html`.
* `pdf_header_template`: 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:
```html
```
* `pdf_footer_template`: 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:
```html
```