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How to Batch Convert Word Documents into PDF Files

Ramesh

Microsoft Word is a top-notch word processor using which you can save documents in .doc, .docx, and different other formats. When you need to send a document to someone who doesn’t have Office Word installed, you usually convert the document to PDF and send it.

As you may have known, Microsoft Word lets you convert or save a document (.doc or .docx file) as a PDF file using the Save As dialog.

Open the document, and launch the Save as dialog. Select PDF (*.pdf) from the list and save the file.

Another option would be to use the Microsoft Print to PDF driver in Windows 10 to output the .doc or .docx file to a .pdf document. For this, you’d use the Print option (instead of Save as) to print the document to PDF.

Pre-Windows 10 systems don’t have the Microsoft Print to PDF driver. In those systems. you can use the free CutePDF Writer or Foxit PDF Printer (part of Foxit PDF Reader software.)

But, if you have tens or hundreds of Word documents that you want to convert to PDF, using the GUI option would be a time-consuming and tiring task.

This article tells you how to batch convert multiple .doc or .docx files to PDF files using Windows Script and other methods.

RELATED: How to Batch Convert Excel Sheets into PDF Files

How to Batch Convert Word Documents into PDF Files

Method 1: Using a custom VBScript

Microsoft Office has automation or scripting support. Using a VBScript, you can bulk convert Word documents to PDF. Here is a simple script I wrote to do the job:

'Convert .doc or .docx to .pdf files via Send To menu
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
For i= 0 To WScript.Arguments.Count -1
   docPath = WScript.Arguments(i)
   docPath = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(docPath)
   If LCase(Right(docPath, 4)) = ".doc" Or LCase(Right(docPath, 5)) = ".docx" Then
      Set objWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
      pdfPath = fso.GetParentFolderName(docPath) & "\" & _
	fso.GetBaseName(docpath) & ".pdf"
      objWord.Visible = False
      Set objDoc = objWord.documents.open(docPath)
      objDoc.saveas pdfPath, 17
      objDoc.Close
      objWord.Quit   
   End If   
Next

Convert Word documents to PDF using VBScript

  1. Copy the above VBScript code to Notepad.
  2. Save the file with a .vbs extension, and in a permanent folder. — e.g., d:\scripts\doc2pdf.vbs
  3. Close Notepad.
  4. Open File Explorer and browse the following SendTo folder: 
    C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
  5. Create a shortcut to the script doc2pdf.vbs in the SendTo folder.
  6. Prefix the shortcut target with wscript.exe and then followed by a space.
  7. Optionally, assign a nice-looking icon by clicking on the Change Icon button.
  8. Name the shortcut accordingly — e.g., Convert Word Docs to PDF

  9. Now, open the folder that contains the Word documents that you want to convert to PDF.
  10. Select the documents, right-click on the selection, and click Send to.
  11. Click Convert Word Docs to PDF in the Send to menu.
    That’s it! Your PDF files are now ready!

Method 2: Using File Converter (Freeware)

File Converter is a simple tool which allows you to convert or compress one or several files using the context menu in Explorer. This program is Freeware!

After you install the software, all you need to do is select the .doc or .docx files you want to convert, click File Converter in the right-click menu and select To Pdf

It shows you the conversion status with the progress bar.

Command-line

To convert a .docx file to .pdf using command-line using File Converter, use this syntax:

"C:\Program Files\File Converter\FileConverter.exe" --conversion-preset "To Pdf" "drive:\path\filename.docx"

Note that this program can convert many file formats to different output formats. You can configure the presets and output format in the File Converter Settings window.

Here is the list of the input and output formats supported by File Converter.

Supported output formats Compatible input formats
Audio flac, aac, ogg, mp3, wav 3gp, aiff, ape, avi, bik, cda, flac, flv, m4a, mkv, mov, mp3, mp4, oga, ogg, wav, webm, wma, wmv
Video webm, mkv, mp4, ogv, avi, gif 3gp, avi, bik, flv, gif, m4v, mkv, mp4, mpeg, mov, ogv, webm, wmv
Image png, jpg, ico, webp bmp, exr, ico, jpg, jpeg, png, psd, svg, tiff, tga, webp, pdf, doc*, docx*, odt*, odp*, ods*, ppt*, pptx*, xls*,
xlsx*
Document pdf doc*, docx*, odt*, odp*, ods*, ppt*, pptx*, xls*, xlsx*, bmp, exr, ico, jpg, jpeg, png, psd, svg, tiff, tga

* You need to have Microsoft Office installed and activated in order to convert Office documents.

This program, as well as the VBScript method, use Microsoft Office Word automation method to convert .doc or .docx to PDF files. This means that you’ll need to have Office installed for the program to convert your Word documents.

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