How to Convert Word DOC (97–03) Document to PDF in Python

If you have had to deal with outdated file formats, then you know the special kind of irritation they bring with them. Today, I am here to demonstrate a simple method for dealing with the problem once and for all. We are going to use Python to convert out of date Microsoft Word DOC files into PDFs.

Let’s begin with installation of our API client, like so.

pip install cloudmersive-convert-api-client

Now we are going to call our function convert_document_doc_to_pdf. As you will notice in the following example, this will require an API instance to be created an API key. This is easy and free.

from __future__ import print_function
import time
import cloudmersive_convert_api_client
from cloudmersive_convert_api_client.rest import ApiException
from pprint import pprint
# Configure API key authorization: Apikey
configuration = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.Configuration()
configuration.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
# Uncomment below to setup prefix (e.g. Bearer) for API key, if needed
# configuration.api_key_prefix['Apikey'] = 'Bearer'
# create an instance of the API class
api_instance = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.ConvertDocumentApi(cloudmersive_convert_api_client.ApiClient(configuration))
input_file = '/path/to/file' # file | Input file to perform the operation on.
try:
# Convert Word DOC (97-03) Document to PDF
api_response = api_instance.convert_document_doc_to_pdf(input_file)
pprint(api_response)
except ApiException as e:
print("Exception when calling ConvertDocumentApi->convert_document_doc_to_pdf: %s\n" % e)

And that’s it! Kiss those annoying outdated files goodbye! Within this library, there are other functions for performing the same process on PPT and XLS files, plus almost 200 others besides!