Conversion of word docs to PDF and then combine into one large pdf for a set of directories

readme.md

scenario

Have a set of directories that have a combination of PDFs and word documents. This is to help me remember what I did for helping Heather with a small work project she needed.

Objectives

1. Each directories' documents (word & pdf) need to be combined in order into a larger PDF

Prequisites

1. Have the location of word documents as a trusted location, according to Word's Trust Center.
2. have ghostscript setup and installed in c:\temp\gs\gs8.63

FindAndConvert.ps1

$d2 = dir -recurse -filter *.doc

$word = new-object -comobject Word.Application
$NotFound = @()
$errors = @()
$d2 | ForEach-Object {
    $doc = $null
    try{
        $f = $_;
        $doc = $word.Documents.open($f.fullname)
        $found = $false
        $dates = (1988..2019 | sort -Descending)
        $dates | %{
        if (-not $found) {
	        $pdf_filename = "$($f.DirectoryName)\$_ - $($f.BaseName).pdf"
	        $range = $doc.content
	        $p = $range.movestart()

	        $found = $range.Find.Execute($_)
	        if ($found){
		        write-host $pdf_filename
        		$doc.SaveAs([ref] $pdf_filename, [ref] 17)
	        }
        }
        }
        if (-not $found){
	        $NotFound += $f
        }
        
    }
    catch {
        $ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message
        $FailedItem = $_.Exception.ItemName
        $errors += $_
        write-error $ErrorMessage
        # stop the loop
        break;
    }
    finally{
        if ($doc){
            $doc.close()
        }
    }
}


$word.quit()

runMe.ps1

# convert into 
./FindAndConvert.ps1
# step to combine PDFs that exist into a "combined.pdf" file
 $errors=[System.Collections.ArrayList]@()
 dir -Directory | % {
    pushd $_
    $inputFiles = $(dir *.pdf -exclude combined.pdf |? Name -Match "20((16)|(17)|(18)|(19)|(20))\s?-.*" | sort name -Descending | % {$_.name} )
    if ($inputFiles.count -gt 1){
        #if you get an error try a different version of ghostscript
        c:\temp\gs\gs8.63\bin\gswin32c.exe -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -sOutputFile="combined.pdf" $inputFiles
    }
    elseif ($inputFiles.count -eq 1){
        copy-item $inputFiles combined.pdf
    }
    if (!$?){
        write-host "Failed on $_"
        $errors.add($_) | Out-Null
        Write-host $inputFiles
    }
    popd
}