Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2007 Bible

Using Document Conversion

The advent of new Web technologies has assisted many non-technical end users in various organizations in the creation of rich, content-driven Web pages using nothing more than a Web browser. It used to be common to find pages on the portal that were created and copied directly from Microsoft Word. It was (and is) very easy to discern Web pages that have been fashioned in this manner through inconsistent formatting and style elements.

This gap has been bridged through the introduction of Smart Client Authoring. Smart Client Authoring uses Document Conversion, a feature in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 built on the document converter infrastructure that empowers authors to convert documents directly into Web pages that may be published and revised from the original file. This is especially useful for these reasons:

• Ease of publishing for pre-existing content.

• Authors unfamiliar with Web publishing tools won’t need to learn a new application.

• Complex documents may be converted readily to existing formatting and styles.

After a document is converted, all browser-based document management features become available on the converted Web page.

The document conversion feature is configured from the SharePoint Central Administration. Depending on the amount of content you anticipate using this process, the document converter service should be activated on specific application servers in your infrastructure. For example, if the servers in question are processing ...