Category: Downloads

Win2PDF Pro Adds New Batch Convert Files Feature

Our latest update to Win2PDF Pro (V10.0.122) adds a new capability to batch convert certain types of files directly into PDF (or another image/text format). The types of files that can be converted are:

[Note: This feature is only available in the Win2PDF Pro version of the software. If you do not have Win2PDF Pro but would like to try this feature, you can request a 30-day trial license.]

Win2PDF Batch Convert can be accessed in 2 different ways. First, it can be accessed from the Windows Start menu under the Win2PDF program group.

Second, Batch convert… can be accessed from the File menu of the Win2PDF Desktop app, as shown below:

Once selected, the user will be able to select 3 options: 1) The input folder containing the files to convert, 2) the output folder where the converted files will be placed, and 3) the file type format for the converted files. The output folder must be different from the input folder.

The conversion process can be canceled if you have a large number of files and wish to abort the operation, or it will convert all files and notify the user when finished.

Only files with supported extensions will be converted (PDF, HTML, XPS, TIFF, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF). Other file types will be ignored.

Here’s an example: Suppose you had a folder of logo samples in different image formats, and you wanted to convert all of them to grayscale PDF files. You could do so very easily by choosing the input and output folders and then choosing the output file format as “PDF Image Only (Grayscale)”.

You can read more at the Batch Convert section of our online user guide, or try it out for yourself. And finally, the Batch Convert feature can be accessed from a command line interface.

Microsoft’s Windows 11 has Arrived!

Earlier this week Microsoft announced the availability of their latest operating system — Windows 11 .

This is not a universal upgrade like Windows 10, however. Many PCs won’t be able to upgrade to Windows 11 due to hardware limitations. You can check if your PC can be upgraded using Microsoft’s PC Health Check app.

Win2PDF supports Windows 11, and continues to support older operating systems like Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and even Windows XP.

While you may be using Windows 11 as the default OS if you purchase a new PC soon, we expect many organizations to continue with Windows 10 as most of the changes in Windows 11 are centered on the user interface and user experience.

If you do upgrade or get a new PC, make sure you are using the latest Win2PDF update for best results.

New Win2PDF 10 Update Now Available!

We have just released a significant new update (Win2PDF 10 build 116) to our Win2PDF download page. As with other recent updates, this is a FREE upgrade for all Win2PDF users using Win2PDF 7 or higher software.

While we’ve previewed several of these features in blog postings over the past several months, now they have all been collected into an official release with enhanced usability features, new and improved command line features to assist with automated PDF workflows, and bug fixes and performance enhancements. It includes:

Windows explorer ight-click context menu for Win2PDF
Right-click context menu in Windows explorer

1) Usability

  • Added support for directly converting image files and HTML files from a Windows Explorer Convert with Win2PDF context menu. To convert a JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, or HTML file to PDF, right click and choose “Convert with Win2PDF (see image above).
  • Added support for viewing PDF files from a Windows Explorer View with Win2PDF context menu. To view a PDF with Win2PDF Desktop, right click and choose “View with Win2PDF”.

2) Command Line Usage and Automation Enhancements

  •  Added support for using web addresses (URLs) for input files in most command line features.
  •  Added PDF/A output support to TIFF2PDFA, JPG2PDFA, PNG2PDFA, BMP2PDFA, GIF2PDFA, and Image2PDFA command lines.
  •  Added support for GETCONTENTSEARCH command line to return text after a search term in a PDF file. This can be used to rename PDF files based on the contents of the file in a Microsoft Power Automate Script.
  •  Added “Web Page To PDF” and HTML2PDF command line features.
  •  Added support for SPLITPAGESAFTERSEARCH command line to split pages based on a PDF search field.
  •  Added support for SIGN command line to sign a PDF using a digital certificate.

3) Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements

Please download this free update and let us know if you have any questions.

HTML to PDF command line option now available in Win2PDF

Win2PDF.com has offered a free online HTML to PDF converter for some time, but it has limitations. It only works with public web pages, not private pages on an intranet or local HTML files. It also can’t be automated.

If you try our latest free update — Win2PDF 10.0.114 — there’s a new feature to the Win2DPF Desktop App’s command line options — HTML to PDF. With this option, you can convert a local HTML file or a web URL directly to a PDF file.

From a Command Prompt window, just issue the command:

win2pdfd.exe html2pdf "sourcehtml" "destpdf"

The “sourcehtml” can be a specific local HTML file or a web URL. If the file name or path contains spaces, make sure to include double quotes (“”) around the complete source file name or URL. The URL can be specified as “https://www.example.com” or “www.example.com”.

Using this option from the command line allows users to automate batch conversion of HTML files to PDF using custom scripts or Microsoft Power Automate Desktop flows. Combined with other Win2PDF command line features, developers can build powerful automated solutions based on HTML reports.

Windows XP is Dead, Long Live Windows XP!

Or, to paraphrase Mark Twain, “the reports of Windows XP’s death have been greatly exaggerated!”

While Microsoft officially stopped development of its Windows XP operating system in 2014, it’s still used on about 25 million computers. The reason is typically due to the fact that companies still run older (legacy) software programs that were discontinued, or no longer work in newer operating systems and can’t be updated.

So, XP lives on. And for organizations that continue to need PDF reports or output from these legacy programs, they might find themselves outpaced by their PDF solutions. Even customers wanting to purchase any of the current Adobe Acrobat products will find that it is no longer available for Windows XP.

Fortunately, Win2PDF still actively supports XP as a platform with all of our latest feature enhancements and bug fixes.

If you find yourself with such a need, download the free Win2PDF for XP trial version from our web site (make sure to use the Win2PDF for Windows XP download button). Also, while many Windows XP computers are offline for security, the Win2PDF for Windows XP setup program does not require an internet connection.

To further blaspheme the wisdom of Mark Twain:

“Good friends, good PDFs, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

Mark Twain

Get Into Your PDF Flow using Microsoft’s Power Automate Desktop Software

Soooo many requests:

“I wish there was an easy way to convert all of these text files to PDF automatically.”

“Why can’t I just save an entire series of web pages as searchable PDF files?”

“How can I consolidate weekly reports from different applications and formats to a single PDF file without spending my whole afternoon doing so?”

These and other questions arrive in our email inbox daily. It seems everybody has some level of repetitive PDF processing that they do and are looking for an easier way to get it done. And since many of these issues are specific to a particular application or to your own business process, it’s not easy to find a one-size-fits-all solution that gives you the type of “push button” solution you really want.

That’s one reason why we’ve been so focused on creating tools like Win2PDF Auto-name, Win2PDF command-line processing, Win2PDF Plug-ins, and Win2PDF mail integrations. All of these features give powerful automation control to the user to eliminate repetitive steps and reduce processing errors.

Now, there’s something that combines all of these Win2PDF “tools” into a single problem-solving toolkit that works with all of your files and other applications. And best yet, it won’t cost you a penny!

Microsoft’s new Power Automate Desktop software is a free download for Windows 10 users that allows you to easily automate any repetitive tasks from your desktop, including the creation or manipulation of PDF files using Win2PDF. Once installed, you just need to create a desktop flow (the series of steps that automate a specific action or task). And no, you don’t need to be a coder to use it. Microsoft has a simple interface that most anyone can use.

It’s quite easy to build your first desktop flow using either pre-built drag-and-drop actions or by recording your own desktop flows to run later. For this latter method, it works similar to macros in Microsoft Office, by recording repetitive actions from your desktop across multiple applications—like your web browser, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Win2PDF, etc.—and then lets you replay the automation whenever needed.

For example, a quick desktop flow to convert all TXT files in a folder to PDF using Win2PDF (using the Win2PDF Auto-name feature) might look something like this:

A very simple recipe like this could save you a lot of time if you are currently working with PDF files regularly and in the same manner.

We’ll be diving into this topic in a bit more detail in future posts, including some more detailed examples where this might be useful. In the meantime, get into the flow and download the Power Automate Desktop software today and look at the Win2PDF Power Automate documentation to see what it can do for you.

Enhanced Mail Support in Latest Win2PDF 10 Update

Win2PDF has always had the capability to attach a new PDF file to a mail message, though the implementation was limited to the default MAPI mail client on the computer (typically Outlook).

Many users have asked us to support other mail programs and services, like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, to send files. Our latest 10.0.93 version of Win2PDF dramatically improves mail client support and allows for direct mail integrations with:

These mail programs can be set up using the new Configure Win2PDF Mail window, which can be accessed either from the Win2PDF Start menu program group (shown below):

[You can also use the Windows search box (the “magnifying glass” icon) and search for Configure Win2PDF Mail to open the configuration screen.]

Or, it can be accessed directly from the Win2PDF Desktop program, by going to File → Mail → Configure Mail (shown below):

Once the Configure Mail window is accessed you will have the following options to enter your mail settings:

To fill in the different mail settings, please see the individual support pages for Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo! Mail, or Custom SMTP Server.

After the mail program settings have been configured, you can send a PDF file using one of these two methods:

  1. Select the Send file… option on the Win2PDF file save window (if you are creating a new PDF file with Win2PDF), or
  1. Open a PDF file in the Win2PDF Desktop app and choose File → Mail → Send Mail (if you are just sending an existing PDF file)

And that’s it. You can download the latest 10.0.93 software (a free update for existing Win2PDF 10 users) from our Win2PDF 10 Update page.

As always, if you have any questions, just send a mail to [email protected].

NEW! Win2PDF “Send to Slack” Plug-In

One of the requests we get is how to take some action after a PDF file is created, and do it automatically. The most common example is to take the PDF file and attach it to a new email message. While Win2PDF has supported this feature since the beginning, many customers want to expand this capability to integrate the PDF files with other applications. And since these processes may be unique to each customer, we’ve expanded our support into a flexible new feature called Win2PDF Plug-Ins.

A Win2PDF Plug-In is simply a small customizable program that can be created, modified, or installed that will give the user an option to take some action with the PDF file after it has been created.

Here’s one example we’ve created for our own internal software development team using the Slack business communication platform. When we download and install the Win2PDF “Send to Slack” Plug-in, it allows our users to check a box on the Win2PDF file save window and automatically send the PDF file into a specific channel in Slack.

Slack allows teams of users to share comments, images, files, etc. in different channels. [A slack channel is simply a topic-based message board that allows any team members who are subscribed to that channel a way to share and exchange information related to that topic. Examples might be channels like #features or #support or #sales.]

With this Win2PDF “Send to Slack” Plug-In installed and configured, it gives our Win2PDF development team an easy way to share PDF files without using email, and they will all be archived in a common channel for all team members. There are a few one-time steps to configure this Win2PDF “Send to Slack” Plug-In to work with your specific Slack workspace and channel.

This is just the first of many Win2PDF Plug-Ins we have in development, and we’ll also be providing more details in future posts on how users can create their own Win2PDF Plug-Ins, or modify ones that we’ve created.

Create PDF Documents With Searchable Text from Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge

Win2PDF now has a feature that allows you to print documents that would normally contain non-searchable text to PDF files with searchable text.

Why this feature? When would you use it?  Well, there is one area in particular where this is useful, and that’s when it comes to printing PDF files from Google’s Chrome web browser, Microsoft’s newest Edge browser, or from other Google apps like Docs. Due to the way Google and Microsoft have developed their browsers and apps, printing from these programs creates PDF files that are image-based and not-searchable (or selectable) as actual text. When documents or web pages are printed to a paper printer, this isn’t noticeable or an issue. However it is a problem if you are using Win2PDF or another PDF printer since the files will be larger, non-searchable, and non-selectable.

We’ve solved this problem by adding a new save format called “Portable Document Format – Searchable (OCR PDF)”. When you use this save option when printing from Chrome, Edge, or Google Docs, the resulting PDF file will contain searchable text. It applies Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to the file and converts the image-based text into searchable text automatically.

This has been frequently reported to our Win2PDF help desk as a problem for users and prior to this feature we had to explain a multi-step process to get the desired results. Now, it’s just a single save like it would be from any other application.

This feature is still in our pre-release testing phase, but we want users to try this and give us some feedback. To try this feature, please do the following:

    1. Download and install Win2PDF 10.0.78 (or higher). This version can be downloaded from the Win2PDF 10 Update section of our knowledgebase.
    2. Download and install the Win2PDF Desktop with OCR Download.
    3. After you install the separate Win2PDF Desktop with OCR package, Win2PDF displays an extra save as type labeled “Portable Document Format – Searchable (OCR PDF)”

While this is useful when you are creating new PDFs from Chrome or Edge, what about existing files that had previously been saved as image only, or that you received as email? Is there a way to “fix” those so that they are searchable?

Yes. Just open the original PDF in the Win2PDF Desktop App and Select Export  -> PDF – Searchable (OCR) from the File menu.

make-pdf-searchable-menu

The Searchable OCR PDF is only available in our pre-release software and we’re working on improvements, but give it a try and if you have any feedback or issues, let us know by sending an email to [email protected] or opening a ticket at our Helpdesk page.

Win2PDF Release 10.0.72 Now Available

A new version of Win2PDF (a free update to existing Win2PDF 7 or Win2PDF 10 users) is available now at the Win2PDF download page. In addition to bug fixes and stability improvements, it adds several new features to Auto-Naming PDF files, command-line options, and the Win2PDF Desktop App. Win2PDF 10.0.72 includes the following new features:

  • Adds a Configure Win2PDF Auto-Name shortcut to the start menu to make configuring the Auto-name features easier.

  • Adds Send File and Print File actions to the Configure Win2PDF Auto-Name menu to automatically email or print a PDF. See How to Automatically name and send PDF files by email for an example of automatically naming and sending invoices to email recipients based on the contents of the PDF.

  • Performance and stability improvements

Again, if you have a license for Win2PDF 7 or Win2PDF 10, you can download this new version at no charge.