Motivated from the discussion on How to convert docx to PDF in r?, I tried to convert .docx to pdf using the following code.
pandoc <- "C:/Users/.../Pandoc/pandoc.exe" input <- "C:/Users/.../abc.docx" output <- "C:/Users/.../abc.pdf" cmd <- sprintf('"%s" "%s" -o "%s"', pandoc, input, output) shell(cmd) However, I am getting the "execution failed with error code 1" error. What's the solution? If there is some issue running this in R, how can I do this using other tools?
I kept having the same problem with this method -- I just can't get it to work.
I did figure out a way to convert docx to PDF using RDCOMClient, however.
library(RDCOMClient) file <- "C:/path/to your/doc.docx" wordApp <- COMCreate("Word.Application") # create COM object wordApp[["Visible"]] <- TRUE #opens a Word application instance visibly wordApp[["Documents"]]$Add() #adds new blank docx in your application wordApp[["Documents"]]$Open(Filename=file) #opens your docx in wordApp #THIS IS THE MAGIC wordApp[["ActiveDocument"]]$SaveAs("C:/path/to your/new.pdf", FileFormat=17) #FileFormat=17 saves as .PDF wordApp$Quit() #quit wordApp I found the FileFormat=17 bit here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/word.wdexportformat
Edit: Alternative option - Use Python in R via Reticulate package. This uses the pywin32 Python package. If you don't have it, you can install it using instructions found here: https://rstudio.github.io/reticulate/articles/python_packages.html
I'm not as conversant in Python, but this works on my machine. See below:
library(reticulate) com <- import("win32com.client") file <- "C:/path/to your/doc.docx" wordPy <- com$gencache$EnsureDispatch("Word.Application") wordPyOpen <- wordPy$Documents$Open(file) wordPyOpen$SaveAs("C:/path/to your/doc.pdf", FileFormat=17) wordPy$Quit() Hopefully this helps!
