How to convert DOCX to PDF using C#?

When I started using .NET Core framework, I found that document conversions from one file format to another are incredibly tricky. While digging the web, I noticed many people losing their heads about it and no simple solution that suits all. Most of the approaches I found were clumsy and outdated, so I came up with the decision to write my own conversion processor. Since there are so many developers struggling with this issue, I thought it would get me some extra karma points to share it and make it widely accessible. And that's how the ConvertAPI was born.

Maximum efforts were put to craft a tool that makes the conversion of multiple DOC/DOCX files to PDF at once intuitive and straightforward. If you develop your code in C#, I'm sure this will be simpler than it sounds, isn't it?

Install-Package ConvertApi

var convertApi = new ConvertApi("your-api-secret");
var result = await convertApi.ConvertAsync("docx", "pdf", new[]
{
   new ConvertApiFileParam(@"c:\source\test.docx")   
});
 var fileInfo = await result.SaveFileAsync(@"\result\test.pdf");

What exactly is ConvertAPI?

The ConvertAPI is high-performance MS Office file conversion api. Here are the strengths and features of ConvertAPI:

• No need to have MS Office installed
• Blazing fast conversions from word documents to PDF format
• Supports all Word formats
• Convert word to pdf C# without Word interop
• Saving dozens of lines of code, only a couple of C# methods
• Works with .NET Framework/.NET Core
• No need to rent/buy and maintain servers

Let’s begin...

First of all, we need to go and register for free at the ConvertAPI.com website https://www.convertapi.com/a. The registration process is quick and simple, you can sign up using your Gmail or Facebook account to make it even faster.

Once registered, you will get your own Secret Key that can be found inside an Overview page. Keep that page open, we will need this key shortly.

Creating a C# console application to convert a word document to PDF programatically

We will create a C# console app by using Visual Studio. It could also be done with Visual Studio Code or JetBrains Rider.

Create a new project and select “Console APP” (.NET Core)”. Set the path to a project and Voilà! A new “hello world” project is created.

We will then have to add a ConvertAPI NuGet package to the project. To do that, navigate to Menu > Project > Manage NuGet Packages… Click on Browse and search for “ConvertAPI” NuGet package. Press the Install button. That’s it, there you have it!

Alternatively, the package can be installed using NuGet Package Manager Console:

Install-Package ConvertApi

You can find the source on GitHub if needed (https://github.com/ConvertAPI/convertapi-dotnet).

The project is set up for word docx to pdf implementation using C#

Let’s write a simple program DOCX to PDF in C# that converts all Word files placed in the directory specified to a PDF file format.

We will start coding by initializing the ConvertApi library and specifying our secret that we already have from ConvertAPI.com website.

var convertapi = new ConvertApi("your-api-secret");

Now let’s write full code that iterates through our Word documents in a C:\Documents folder and convert them into PDF format programmatically using C# code provided below.

using ConvertApiDotNet;
using System.IO;

namespace WordToPdf
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Creating ConvertApi instance and providing our secret key
            var convertapi = new ConvertApi("your-api-secret");

            foreach (var docxFile in Directory.EnumerateFiles(@"C:\Documents"))
            {
                // Building path to pdf file
                var pdfFile = Path.GetDirectoryName(docxFile) + @"\" + Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(docxFile) + ".pdf";

                // Converting file
                convertapi.ConvertFile(docxFile, pdfFile);
            }
        }
    }
}

All the magic is done by line convertapi.ConvertFile(docxFile, pdfFile); which takes word documents and converts them to PDF.

The API supports a bunch of properties, all of them can be found at https://www.convertapi.com/docx-to-pdf. The ConvertApiParam object must be created and passed into ConvertFile method as a parameter. The example below use PageRange property to limit conversion to 1-3 pages from word document to pdf.

Complete code

using ConvertApiDotNet;
using System.IO;

namespace WordToPdf
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Creating ConvertApi instance and providing our secret key
            var convertapi = new ConvertApi("your-api-secret");

            foreach (var docxFile in Directory.EnumerateFiles(@"C:\Documents"))
            {
                // Building path to pdf file
                var pdfFile = Path.GetDirectoryName(docxFile) + @"\" + Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(docxFile) + ".pdf";

                // Creating PageRange parameter. All possible parameters: https://www.convertapi.com/docx-to-pdf
                var pageRange = new ConvertApiParam("PageRange", "1-3");

                // Converting file
                convertapi.ConvertFile(docxFile, pdfFile, new[] { pageRange });
            }
        }
    }
}

Conclusion

There is a really simple and neat way of converting MS Office documents into PDF file formats while leaving all the ugly work for ConvertAPI processor. This API supports not only Microsoft Office file formats like DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, but eBooks, iWork, emails, images and much more. From now on, you simply need to copy your documents into that specified input directory and retrieve the converted results instantly! It really can be set up in less than few minutes, watch a video below and see it in action. In this article we used ConvertAPI NuGet package (Git repository). Try live demo and read more about conversion parameters at https://www.convertapi.com/docx-to-pdf.

That’s it folks, hope you find it helpful!