Implement Document Conversion Jobs In SharePoint Server 2016 Using Nintex Workflows

Word Automation Service in SharePoint enables the conversion of the documents supported by Microsoft Word. This Service is provided as a Service Application in SharePoint. Conversion of the documents is not present as an On Demand Service. Instead, the conversion of the job is handled by a timer job called Word Automation Services. It is set to run after every 15 minutes. During its run, it picks up the conversion jobs and performs the conversion of the documents. Thus, in order to perform document conversions, ensure that Word Automation Services Application is created.



Also make sure that the service is started.



You can read more about Word Automation Services here. In this article, we will see how to implement Document conversion jobs in SharePoint, using Nintex Workflow 2016.

Getting Started

Create a document library, where the documents to be converted will be stored. Let’s create the library WordToPDF that will store Word documents to be converted to PDF.



Add Nintex Workflow to Library

Now, let’s add the Nintex Workflow by selecting “Create a Workflow in Nintex Workflow” option.



Drag and Drop Regular Expression action to the Workflow designer. Regular expression will be used to get the document's current name along with the extension. The extension will be then replaced with the converted document’s extension, so that it can be assigned to the converted document.



Select the Configure option from the drop down.



Let’s create a Workflow variable, which will hold the converted document's name, which will be used in the Workflow.



Select the New button.



Specify the variable name and the data type.



In the Pattern text box, specify the current document extension, doc|docx. In the Replacement text box, specify the destination document extension, PDF. This will help us to get the PDF document name, which will be assigned to the converted document.



In the input text, specify the Item URL.





Convert Document Action

Once we have assigned the variable with the destination document name that will be assigned to the converted document, add the action Convert Document.



Select Configure action from the drop down.