Black Ice Document Converter Server
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The Document Converter Server is discontinued as of 01/02/2022. Document Converter Server now is BiBatchConverter Server.

The Document Converter provides high-volume parallel document conversion to TIFF, searchable PDF, Image PDF, Fax, JPEG, PNG, and more file formats from windows services. The Document Converter comes with the Service Manager utility, which provides an easy-to-use user interface to configure the Document Converter Service and the document conversion process.

    Benefits of document conversion running Black Ice Document Converter Server

    The Document Converter service can run under "Administrator" account instead of under a particular user or System Account. This allows the service to continue the document conversion even after the current user logs off in unattended mode.

    How does the Document Converter work?

    The The Document Converter Service installs automatically during the installation. The Document Converter Service Manager utility provides an easy-to-use user interface to manage the document conversion. The Service Manager allows the user to interact and configure the Document Converter Service, which converts the documents in the background.

    Starting the document conversion

    To start converting documents after the installation, start Document Converter Service Manager from the desktop. The green line at the top indicates that the service is installed properly, and ready to convert documents.

    Copy the files that need to be converted into the specified Monitored (Input) directory, and click on Start Conversion button.

    When the Service Manager has started to initiate the conversion, it starts to write the events to the Event log. The successfully converted (output) documents will be moved to the Converted (Output) folder. The successfully processed original documents will be moved to the Processed folder, and the documents that could not be converted will be moved to the Failed folder.

    Document conversion process

    The Document Converter monitors the Monitored directory. When the Document Converter converts a document, the output file will be generated in the Working directory, and once the conversion is finished, the output file will be moved into Converted (Output) directory. If the conversion was successful, the source document goes to Processed directory, otherwise the source document goes to Failed directory. The Working directory will be located under the Processed directory as a subdirectory.

    Using Working directory is optional. Working directory helps users to track the successfully converted documents, excluding the documents under conversion. To disable the Working directory, go to Advanced > Conversion Settings > Uncheck the Use a temporary directory for the converted files option.

    Document Converter
    The Document Converter service must run under a local or domain administrator account. The Document Converter service cannot run under system account.

    Web Interface

    The Web Interface can be used to supervise and manage remotely the document conversion with the Document Converter Server from any web browser. For more information please refer to the following webpage.

    SMS Notification Configuration

    Document Converter Server is able to send SMS notifications to users in several stages during the document conversion. To Setup the SMS notification, click on the SMS Notification button on the Document Converter User Interface. For more information please refer to the following webpage.

    Supported Operating Systems

    Servers

    Windows Server 2022 (64 bit)

    Windows Server 2019 (64 bit)

    Windows Server 2016 (64 bit)

    Windows Server 2012 R2 (64 bit)

    Windows Server 2012 (64 bit)

    Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop

    VMware Horizon + ThinApp, VMware VCenter

    Microsoft RemoteApp, Microsoft Hyper-V, Hyper-V VDI

    Converting documents without user interaction

    Document Converter Server can convert thousands of document in the background without any user interaction.

    Dozens of supported file formats

    The Document Converter can be used to convert Adobe PDF, Foxit PDF, Microsoft Office Documents (DOCX, DOC, DOCM, DOT, DOTX, TXT, RTF, XLSX, XLS, XLSM, XLSB, CSV, PPSX, XPS, PPS, PPSM, PPT, PPTX, PPTM, Visio), Web HTML, Image Files (TIF, TIFF, FAX, JPG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, DCM), AutoCAD (DWG) files, Email files (MSG, EML with Attachments ), EMF, Medical Imaging DICOM.

    Multi-driver Parallel Conversion

    The Document Converter can utilize multiple Black Ice Printer Drivers for parallel multi-threaded document conversion!

    To make sure that the conversion process is running in the optimal environment, it is required to have at least one CPU core per Printer Driver. For example: When converting with three Black Ice Printer Drivers parallel, the minimum of 4 CPU core system is needed. One core for the Operating System and 3 cores for conversion for the 3 printer drivers.

    Directory Monitoring

    The Document Converter monitors the specified directories, and process documents from the monitored directory.

    Process and Map subdirectories

    The Document Converter can process the documents from the subdirectories of the monitored directories, and map the same directory structure for the converted documents!

    Document Filtering

    In the Document Converter once can configure which documents type to be processed by Document Converter Service ignoring other documents in the directory.

    Windows Service based document conversion

    The Document Converter service can run under "Administrator" account instead of under a particular user or System Account. This allows the service to continue the document conversion even after the current user logs off in unattended mode.

    Changing Printer Driver settings from within the sample

    The Printer Driver settings can be changed simply from the sample applications user interface.

    Email notification

    Email Notification feature can send emails to the specified recipients about conversion errors, when the conversion finished successfully or to alert administrators if a specified error occurs during conversion process to review the conversion results during the conversion process. The email notification significantly simplify administrators task to monitor high volume document conversions. Available email notifications:

    - Send report when the conversion is complete
    - Send email on every error message
    - Send email when the conversion is complete

    Detailed logging

    Document Converter creates detailed log file during the conversion, to help developers and administrators identify and troubleshoot the occurring issues.

    Sorting processed documents

    Into Failed, Processed, Converter (Output) directories to help users and developers see through the converted, processed, and problematic files immediately.

    Reliability and advanced erroneous document handling

    The conversion never stops! The Document Converter Server handles erroneous, damaged, password protected, and not printable documents and continues the conversion after moving the problematic document into the failed directory.

    Text Output

    The Document Converter Server is capable of extracting the text information from the printed document. The text extracted from the document is saved as a standard text file. The text file gets the same name as the printed document, but with the .txt extension. The Document Converter supports the following text outputs:

    - Plain text (default) – option generates plain text output without formatting, position and font information.
    - Add font information, position and style – option generates text output with font information, position and style. This option is recommended if one intend to convert the text back to formatted document.
    - Text with layout – option generates plain text output without font information but tries to keep the original physical layout, indent, alignment and spacing.

    Document Converter can convert the following file types:

    Source file extension Printing application
    DOCX, DOTX, DOCM, DOC, DOT, XLSX, XLS, XLSM, XLSB, CSV Microsoft Office 365 or 2016 or 2013 or 2010
    RTF Microsoft Office 365 or 2016 or 2013 or 2010
    PPSX, PPS, PPT, PPTX Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2013 or 2010
    HTML and HTM Internet Explorer (the recommended version is 8 or higher)
    VS, VSD Microsoft Visio 2007 or higher
    DWG AutoCAD
    PDF Adobe Reader 10 or higher
    Adobe Acrobat Pro 10 or higher
    Foxit Reader 9.6 or higher
    TXT Microsoft Office 365 or 2016 or 2013 or 2010
    TIFF, FAX, JPEG, GIF, BMP, DCM and PNG Included
    EMF Included
    MSG, EML email files Included
    XPS XPS Viewer

    Document Converter supports the following output (printed) documents:

    Output file format Output file extension
    Searchable PDF and PDF image (non-searchable PDF) .PDF
    Compact PDF .PDF
    JPEG .JPG
    TIFF Group3 1D, TIFF Group4, TIFF Uncompressed, TIFF LZW, TIFF JPEG, TIFF for Cisco, TIFF for Dialogic, TIFF for Gammalink, TIFF for NMS .TIF
    PNG - Portable Network Graphics .PNG
    GIF - Graphics Interchange Format .GIF
    BMP Bitmap .BMP
    CCITT .RAW
    CALS .CG4
    PCX .PCX
    DCX .DCX
    EMF - Enhanced Metafile .EMF
    HTML, HTML - editable webpages .HTM
    XML, XML - editable .XML
    ASCII Text .TXT

    MSI Installer for large scale deployment

    The MSI installer for Document Converter Server designed for large scale deployment in Active Directory environments. With the Document Converter Server MSI installer System Administrators can create custom configurations for every User on the system. The MSI installer will greatly simplify mess deployment and eliminates the need for customers to build custom installations.

    The MSI installer is compatible with Microsoft SMS/SCCM, Zenworks, and Marimba.

    The MSI install has the following installation features:

    • Upgrade the Document Converter Server without reboot while preserving the user settings using the MSI installer
    • Automatic silent installation.
    • Automatic register/activate the Printer driver with a serial number
    • Install the Document Converter for evaluation.
    • Configure installation target directory.
    • Configure Document Converter Server service Login (Username/Password)
    • Configure Web interface.
    • Configure the registration of the printer driver with Black Ice license server:
      • 443 port with SSL (default)
      • 80 port without SSL
      • 3500 port without SSL
      • 15000 port without SSL
    • Configure the connection to license server with proxy server.
      • Not using proxy server (default)
      • Attempt to discover automatic proxy
      • Use HTTP proxy
      • Use SOCKS proxy
    • Pre-configure the Document Converter Server printer driver using the configuration ini file.
    • Such as file format and more. Every feature of the Document Converter Server printer driver can be pre-configured.
    • Use Profile file to Configuration the Document Converter Server printer driver.
    • Hide Printer driver Printing Preferences Tabs from Users.
    • Hide Printer driver Printing Preferences Upload and Email Options from Users.

    For example:
    msiexec /i "[PATH]\DocumentConverterServer.msi" /q USERNAME=".\Administrator" USERPASSWORD="12345678" TARGETDIR="C:\Black Ice\Document Converter Server" REGNUM=XXXXX-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXX

    MSI

    Supported Installation methods using Group Policy Deployment;

    • Assign to Computer (silent install)
    • Assign to User (silent install)
    • Publish

    Additional supported installation method;

    • Installation from command line (cmd.exe)


    Requirement;

    • .NET framework 4.0 or higher


    For MSI Installer availability, contact sales@blackice.com.