Enable Document Conversion Services

Document Conversion Services or DCS are used when using the CPP, WCM authoring and previewing, and search. Documents produced by many standard applications (such as word processors or spreadsheet editors) can be viewed as HTML pages using DCS. Documents received as attachments to e-mail can be viewed in the browser even if the application that created the document is not installed.

DCS 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 WAS that supports document conversion services.

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)
HP/UX (RISC 32)	11.0 and 11.i
HP/UX (Itanium 64)	11i
IBM AIX (32-bit pSeries)	5.1 - 5.3
iSeries (OS/400 using PASE)	V5R2
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
Sun Solaris (SPARC)	7.x - 10.x
Sun Solaris (x86)	8.x - 9.x

View the steps to set up file type definitions and enable DCS.

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

1. Locate the content-types.properties file in the following directory:

   AppServer_root\java\jre\lib
   

   For i5/OS, the content-types.properties file is under /QIBM/ProdData/Java400/jdk15/lib.

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 your system.

   Table 2. Systems and packages

   Systems	Additional Packages
   AIX	X11R6
   HP-UX	X11R6
   i5/OS (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:

Windows: c:\temp

• Unix: /tmp

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

• i5/OS: /temp

If you wish to create a temporary directory other than the default, you can edit the convertors.xml file in the PortalServer_root\lwo\prereq.odc\shared\app directory. Add the property "tempDir" to the <global> tag:

<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 Express from 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 HP-UX, AIX, and i5/OS, refer to the prerequisites as described in Prerequisites for viewing 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 Prerequisites for viewing 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 your machine. Set GDFONTPATH to point to the fonts folder.

   For example:

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

4. Verify 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. 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: 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 the export.cfg file, located under the PortalServer_root_user/shared/app directory, if you want to fine tune conversion properties such as graphics size and resolution.

See also

1. Prerequisites for DCS
2. Enable remote document conversion
3. Files that can be viewed as HTML

Parent topic:

Configure WebSphere Portal

Related concepts

Configuration task properties
Configure WebSphere Portal with the configuration wizard
Configure portal behavior
Configure IBM Tivoli License Compliance Manager
Changing the portal URI
Manage the user registry
Configure Web Content Management
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Connect to existing database domains
Add features to an administration installation
Activate SSL and FIPS
Additional security features