Node.js - PDF, DOC, DOCX to PNG

Question

Is there any library that can parse and generate a PNG from a Doc, Docx and PDF file?

We're implementing a training system using Node, Sails.js, Express and SQL and would like to generate some PNG image tiles for training modules based on a file upload.

I've done some searching and found some libraries in C# that can do all 3, as well as a just PDF impementation for Node but can't find anything that does more than that.

A point towards any 3rd party libraries or standard implementations of this method would be great.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can do that sort of stuff with C# (probably only on Windows) because C# is from MS stables, the same stable that churns out doc and docx. I am not sure whether the same implementation would work on Linux or Mac (even with Mono).

If you want to achieve this in NodeJS, just create the app in C#, wrap it in a ReSTful cover and call this ReSTful service in NodeJS (via Kue or something similar).

Honestly, converting file formats is a compute intensive process process. I wouldn't recommend it doing it the same main thread any way. If you're anyway gonna spawn a worker, you might as well do it in C# where it's perhaps faster.

Answer 2

Not necessarily an exact match for your requirement, but since you mentioned training purpose, I would recommend Watson Developer Cloud - it has document conversion among many other features which may be relevant and useful for your objective as a whole.

Speaking of the current problem, please see Document conversion overview to see how we can convert a PDF into a desired format such as HTML. Then you could actually get the PNG files from the HTML resource bundle.

Hope this helps.