haliphax

I have recently been tasked at work to create a script that will convert PDF files to TIFF files to be used for annotation within our document imaging service. The script is responsible for the following process:

• Create back-up copies of each PDF
• Time-stamp those back-up copies
• Convert each PDF to a LZW-compressed TIFF image

For posterity's sake, I figured I would go ahead and post an example version of the script here, in case it might be useful to anyone else.

VBScript code:

'===============================================================================
' Program: Singularity PDF to TIFF conversion script
' Author: haliphax
' Date: 2009/11/19
' Modified: Never
' Description:
'
' The script converts all PDF files to TIFF files in a given directory,
' appending the current date and time to backed-up copies of the PDF files.
'===============================================================================

' options
sFolder = "c:\temp" ' folder to search for PDF files
historyFolder = "c:\temp\history" ' folder to send back-up copies of PDF files
convertCmd = "c:\program files\imagemagick\convert.exe" ' ImageMagick command

' objects
set shell = createObject("WScript.Shell")
set fso = createObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set folder = fso.getFolder(sFolder)
set files = folder.files
wscript.echo("*** Batch start: " & Time())

' iteratively walk the directory's file list
for each fileIdx in files
    if lCase(right(fileIdx.name, 3)) = "pdf" then
        ' data for time stamp
        d = date()
        t = time()
        s = second(t)
        ' grab just the file name (no extension)
        fileName = left(fileIdx.name, len(fileIdx.name) - 4)
        ' zero-fill seconds
        if len(s) < 2 then s = "0" & s
        ' time stamp to append to the filename
        append = "_" & replace(formatDateTime(d, 2), "/", "-") & "_" _
            & replace(formatDateTime(t, 4), ":", "") & s

        ' make a backup of the file if possible
        if fso.copyFile(sFolder & "\" & fileIdx.name, historyFolder & "\" _
            & fileName & append & ".pdf") <> 0 _
        then
            ' detect error
            wscript.echo("–- Error copying " & fileIdx.name)
        else
            ' successfully backed-up, go ahead and convert w/ ImageMagick
            ' syntax: convert.exe -compress LZW "{pdfname}" "{tiffname}"
            r = shell.run("""" & convertCmd & """ -compress LZW """ _
                & fileIdx.name & """ """ & fileName & ".tif""", 0, True)

            ' detect error
            if r <> 0 then
                wscript.echo("–- Error converting " & fileIdx.name)
            else
                wscript.echo("+++ Converted: " & fileIdx.name)
            end if
        end if
    end if
next

wscript.echo("*** Batch end: " & Time())
' clean-up
set files = nothing
set folder = nothing
set fso = nothing
set shell = nothing