Enabling Document Conversion Services

 

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Use Document Conversion Services to view a document as HTML.

Documents produced by many standard applications (such as word processors or spreadsheet editors) can be viewed as HTML pages using Document Conversion Services, which is integrated with the Document Manager portlet.

Documents received as attachments to e-mail can be viewed in the browser even if the application that created the document is not installed. Document Conversion Services also allows documents to be searched by content. Document pages can also be converted into an image format such as...

• GIF
• BMP
• JPG
• PNG

For i5/OS the document conversion functionality of Document Manager requires the installation of...

OS/400 - Additional Fonts (5722SS1, Option 43)

To ensure that document conversions will work for...

• Microsoft Office
• Lotus SmartSuite
• OpenOffice file

...perform the following configuration steps...

1. Locate...

   app_server_root\java\jre\lib\content-types.properties

   For i5/OS, content-types.properties is under...

   /QIBM /ProdData/Java400/jdk14/lib

2. Update the content-types.properties file as follows. These extensions are case-sensitive.
   • Microsoft Office:

     application/msword: \
         description=Microsoft  Word;\
         file_extensions=.doc 
     application/vnd.ms-excel: \
         description=Microsoft  Excel;\
         file_extensions=.xls 
     application/vnd.ms-powerpoint: \
         description=Microsoft  PowerPoint;\
         file_extensions=.ppt 

   • Lotus SmartSuite:

     application/vnd.lotus-freelance: \
             description= Lotus  Freelance;\
             file_extensions=.prz 
     application/vnd.lotus-1-2-3: \
             description= Lotus  1-2-3;\
             file_extensions=.123
     
     application/vnd.lotus-wordpro: \
             description= Lotus  WordPro;\
             file_extensions=.lwp 

   • OpenOffice:

     application/vnd.sun.xml.writer: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sxw 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.writer.template: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.stw 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.writer.global: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sxg 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.calc: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sxc 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.calc.template: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.stc 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.impress: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sxi 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.impress.template: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sti 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.draw: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sxd 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.draw.template: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.std 
     application/vnd.sun.xml.math: \
         description=Open Office;\
         file_extensions=.sxm 

3. Make sure you have the appropriate package installed for the system.

   Systems	Additional Packages
   AIX	X11R6
   HP-UX	X11R6
   i5/OS (v5 r2) PASE	X11R6
   Linux *	X11R6 LessTif or Motif with libXm.so.1 (Stellent 8.0.1) LessTif or Motif with libXm.so.2 (Stellent 7.75 or earlier)
   Solaris	X11R6
   Windows	n/a

   * If OpenMotif is included on the Linux server (for example, RedHat 3.0) then you do not need to install the LessTif RPM package, as the binaries for the LessTif package are already included.

A temporary directory is used for document conversion. The default temporary directory is:

• Windows:

  c:\temp

• Unix:

  /temp

  The default Unix /temp directory is located in the root system and needs to be created if it does not exist.

• i5/OS:

  /temp

To create a different temporary directory other than the default, edit...

portal_server_root\shared\app\convertors.xml

...and add...

<global>
    <property name="tempDir" value="yourtempDirectory"/>
</global>

To launch the native application when clicking the attachment, the following MIME types must be registered in WebSphere Application Server to enable browsers to properly display documents of that type. The following additional types need to be registered:

• application/msword doc
• application/vnd.ms-excel xls

 

Remote document conversion

Local document conversion is not supported on some platforms, such as z/OS. On these platforms, document conversion must be performed on a remote IBM WebSphere Application Server that supports document conversion services.

On the zLinux platform, local document conversion is supported except in the case of image export. During image export, the pages of a document are converted into images, such as the GIF format. If you wish to utilize image export as part of document conversion services on zLinux, run document conversion on a remote server.

On platforms that support local document conversion, document conversion services can be delegated to a remote server to better balance processing power and manage server performance.

i5/OS:

We can choose to run the X Server on the portal server or a remote server. We can also use a framebuffer device or XVFB to emulate X Windows servers on a headless server. The conversion filters are installed with WebSphere Portal. There is no need for configuration. However, we can configure...

portal_server_root/shared/app/export.cfg

...to fine tune conversion properties such as graphics size and resolution.

 

Related tasks

Enable remote document conversion
Convert document formats

 

Related reference

Files that can be viewed as HTML

 

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