Enable Document Conversion Services

Overview

Document Conversion Services are used when working with...

• Common Mail Portlet
• WCM authoring previewing
• Search

Documents produced by many standard applications (such as word processors or spreadsheet editors) can be viewed as HTML pages using Document Conversion Services. Documents received as attachments to email 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 or PNG.

Some platforms support running the DCS locally while others don't. The following table lists the platforms and versions that support running the document conversion services. On platforms that don't support running the DCS locally, document conversion must be performed on a remote IBM WebSphere Application Server.

Platform	Version(s)
Windows(x86 32-bit)	Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista
Windows (Itanium 64-bit)	Windows .Net Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Windows (x86 64-bit)	Windows 2003 x64 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter Editions (64-bit Extended Systems)
IBM AIX(32-bit pSeries)	5.1 - 5.3
iSeries(OS/400using PASE)	V5R4, V6R1, and V7R1
Red Hat Linux(x86)	Advanced Server 3, 4, and 5
Red Hat Linux (Itanium 64)	Advanced Server 3, 4, and 5
Red Hat Linux (x86 64-bit)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4
Red Hat Linux (zSeries®, 31-bit)	Advanced Server 3 and 4
SuSE Linux (x86)	9, 10, and Enterprise Server 9.0
SuSE Linux (Itanium 64)	Enterprise Server 8
SuSE (x86 64-bit)	SUSE Enterprise Server (SLES) 9, 10
SuSE Linux (zSeries, 31-bit)	9
Oracle Solaris (SPARC)	7.x - 10.x
Oracle Solaris (x86)	8.x - 9.x

View the steps to set up file type definitions and enable Document Conversion Services.

Perform the following configuration steps to ensure that document conversions will work for Microsoft Office, Lotus SmartSuite, and OpenOffice file types:

1. Edit...
   WAS_HOME/java/jre/lib/content-types.properties file

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

   • Microsoft Office 2007:

     application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document: /
     		 description=Microsoft Word 2007 file;/
     		 file_extensions=.docx
      
     application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation: /
     		 description=Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 file;/
     		 file_extensions=.pptx
      
     application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet: /
     		 description=Microsoft Excel 2007 file;/
     		 file_extensions=.xlsx

   • Microsoft Office (prior to 2007):

     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 system.

   Systems and packages

   Systems	Additional Packages
   AIX	X11R6
   IBM i (v6r1 and v5r4)	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:

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

• IBM i: /temp

To create a temporary directory other than the default, edit convertors.xml file in...

WP_PROFILE/PortalServer/dcs

Add the property tempDir to the <global> tag as follows:

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

To launch the native application when clicking the attachment, the following MIME types must be registered in WAS 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

For Unix systems, launch IBM Workplace Services Expressfrom the console or an X-Server-enabled client with the same privileges (xhost+) as the console.

On Unix servers, graphical conversions require access to an X Windows server, since they require access to the Xm, Xt and X11 libraries. Also the DISPLAY environment variable must be set to the account that Portal is running under. The DISPLAY must be valid at the point that Portal is started. Therefore, telneting to a machine and starting Portal from there does not work. You must start the portal from an X terminal.

For AIX and i, refer to the prerequisites as described in Configure images in non-Windows platform.

For Linux and Solaris, when using Stellent version 8.1.0 and later, the X-server dependency has been removed. For these platforms, perform these steps:

1. Prepare the system using the steps outlined in Configure images in non-Windows platform.

2. Install libXm.so.3 and ln -sf /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so.3.0.2 /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so.2.0.1.

3. Use the command find / -name *.ttf to locate the fonts folder on machine. Set GDFONTPATH to point to the fonts folder. For example:

   export GDFONTPATH=/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/java/jre/lib/fonts

4. Make sure that the environment variable GDFONTPATH includes one or more paths to the fonts folder.
   Only TrueType fonts (*.ttf or *.ttc files) are supported. If the variable GDFONTPATH is not found, the current directory is used. If fonts are called for and cannot be found, HTML Export will exit with an error. When copying Windows fonts to a Unix system, the font extension for the files (*.ttf or *.ttc) must be lowercase, or the fonts will not be detected during the search for available fonts. Stellent does not provide fonts with any Outside In product.

Remote document conversion:

Local document conversion may not be supported on some platforms. On these platforms, document conversion must be performed on a remote IBM WAS 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. To use 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.
i: You can choose to run the X Server on the portal server or a remote server. You 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, you can configure...

WP_PROFILE/PortalServer/config/export.cfg file

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

See

• Configure Document Conversion Services
• Configure a remote Document Conversion Service
• Files that can be viewed as HTML

Parent

Configuring

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