
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 / ObjectrequiredSpecifies 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 theuse
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
totrue
, 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 thename
attribute of the HTML file input field tag for instance. When using a back-end SDK, it corresponds withmyFieldName1
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
StringrequiredThe 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
andsrt
. -
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
andcommonmark
variants of Markdown. -
markdown_theme
String ⋅ default:"github"
This parameter overhauls your Markdown files styling based on several canned presets. Valid values include
github
andbare
. -
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
StringHTML template for the PDF print header.
Should be valid HTML markup with following classes used to inject printing values into them:
date
formatted print datetitle
document titleurl
document locationpageNumber
current page numbertotalPages
total pages in the document
Currently this parameter is only supported when converting from
html
, and requirespdf_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
StringHTML 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 requirespdf_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>
Demos
- Convert document files to PDF format
- Convert the format of your subtitle from srt to vtt
- Add a header of footer to a PDF
Related blog posts
- Re-loadit: the /document/convert Robot November 16, 2019
- Convert Markdown to HTML (and PDF) April 19, 2021
- Transloadit Milestones of 2021 January 31, 2022