DOC to PDF Converter

Long gone are the times when you needed a typewriter to write some official text. Nowadays anyone with a computer can easily download an office suite and use the word processor included to write an official document or simply create some documentation.

Microsoft Office suite is among the best known and most employed all around the world for its efficiency, standard setting and quality of the results. And the 2007 version is simply baffling if you take into consideration functionality and openness of options, which are practically ready to give your text any form you want to.

But besides the world known DOC text format there is another one equally flexible once loaded in the right app, PDF. Together they dominate the world of documents. However, if WinRAR can easily create ZIP archives, it is not the case with PDF and DOC formats.

Luckily, third-party developers have speculated this and created their own applications to make the conversions and Batch DOC to PDF Converter is one of the solutions. The commercial license for the software is $49.98 and if you want to test it first the 7-day trial period with almost full functionality should be more than enough. The only restriction in the evaluation copy is that you cannot convert more than three items in a session.

The price may not be the best one, but ease of use and a wide range of document formats are the strengths of the application. Once you get past the splash screen, simple looks with no complicated options welcome you. But first you need to know that Batch DOC to PDF Converter does not work unless you have Microsoft Office installed on your system.

There is absolutely nothing complicated about the interface and the options it shelters. Actually there is nothing else available except for the boxes where you define the source and the target location for the converted documents. But this is just the tip of the iceberg as the application lets you add entire folders containing supported formats and convert them all at once. More than this, it is perfectly capable of looking inside a folder and searching for the file types it supports. So it gives you a hand into picking the data to be converted to PDF format.

In case you have a larger project, you do not have to wait until all operations are finished as the program provides the possibility to pause the job and save the entire project for later. You can open it at any time and the process will pick up from where it left off.

As for the supported file types, Batch DOC to PDF Converter can handle DOC/DOCX, DOCM, HTM, HTML, MHT, MHTML, RTF, TXT, XML, PWD and PSW. With all this large list of formats, during our testing the application failed to provide the expected quality for the conversion result in the case of MHT. The conversion process went on normally but the resulting PDF was definitely not what we expected. However, with DOCX, DOC, RTF and TXT documents everything was perfect.

One advantage of Batch DOC to PDF Converter is that it can also transfer the Document Map of a file into the familiar bookmarks of the PDF, thus allowing you to skip from one part of the document to another with the utmost ease.

To make all the conversion deal as smooth as possible the application integrates itself in Microsoft Word under the “Save As” section. Along with all the formats available there will also be the PDF option right in front of you. The option blends in so nice that many users may think it has always been there.

For the advanced users Batch DOC to PDF Converter comes with command line support. The options are the same as those in the interface so you still benefit from executing batch projects and batch conversions. Parameters are also present for working with sub-directories, defining the target location, enabling target overwrite, or picking a source folder with file name wild mask.

The product works fine, save for the MHT format, which is not quite what you would expect, though with the other document files everything worked like a charm. However, there are downsides to all this and the price makes the headlist considering that there are free online services doing the DOC/DOCX conversions. Also, a wider range of document formats such as OpenOffice's ODT would be a great addition.

The Good

Batch DOC to PDF Converter makes for an easy way to convert your Word documentation to portable document format. It can batch process multiple files of different file formats and its integration in the Save As menu of the Microsoft word application is seamless.

Command line support for advanced users is provided with all parameters available in the GUI version. The app can search through a given folder for the supported file types.

The Bad

$49.98 is not at all appetizing especially with the free services roaming the Internet. No matter the great deal of document formats supported, the list does not include OpenOffice's PDF, which is largely used as an alternative for the Microsoft Office suite.

It would be nice is Microsoft Office were not absolutely imperious for the conversion process and the application could function all by itself.

The Truth

Batch DOC to PDF Converter does a great job but it fails to rise to acceptable standards mainly due to the elevated price. Its dependency on Microsoft Office is another aspect dragging it down in user's preferences.

On the bright side its conversions are pretty fast and of great quality, save for MHT/MHTML in which case the resulting PDF snipped the margins a bit.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: