Word Automation Service

in SP2013
Vesa Juvonen
Principal Consultant
Microsoft

©2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Overview
 Word Automation Services (WAS) is all about file
conversions
 Three main pain points in SharePoint 2010
 Solutions must wait until timer job executes for file generation
 Can only handle files in SharePoint
 No easy way to know when conversion has been completed

 Feedback
 I want to convert Word document ”right now”
 I want to use Word Automation but don’t want to put files to SharePoint
 I want to convert document and perform operation to file immediately when it’s available

©2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Key changes in SP2013 for Word Automation
New ”Immediate” based request (no waiting)
New option to execute conversion immediately, not necessarily from timer job
Operate on one file at the time per request
Configuration options from CA for simultaneous request amount

Notify or update items in SharePoint after completion

Word Automation Services can perform file conversions and can update files (ex. update table of
contents or fields)

Allow WAS to support streams

Convert streams from API perspective
as inputs and outputs for file operations
Streams are stored in memory within
Application Server Manager and
Worker – not in content database

©2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Source and destination formats
Open documents that Word can open, including
Open XML File Format documents (.docx, .docm, .dotx, .dotm).
Word 97-2003 documents (.doc, .dot).
Rich Text Format files (.rtf).
Single File Web Pages (.mht, .mhtml).
Word 2003 XML Documents (.xml).
Word XML Document (.xml).

Support all automatic tasks that execute when a document opens

Convert to any document type what Word can save to, including
Portable Document Format (PDF) files
XML Paper Specification (XPS) files

©2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Word automation Services - Architecture
Web Front End
Object Model

Application Server Application Server Worker Back End

Manager Back End
Word File Conversion Service Engine
Queue Manager/
Immediate Based Document Queue
Scheduler

Timer job Timer Job Based Document Queue

Document Queue SharePoint

Database Content Database

©2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Considerations
 There’s no out of the box functionality to perform
conversion directly from UI
 You can however deploy customization which for example enables conversion
from all document libraries for Word documents
 Customization requires to be deployed as full trust solution or executed in
SharePoint server

 There is health check rule to ensure that word

automation configuration is in recommended limits

©2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on
the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.