Convert DOCX to PDF in Power Automate

This article demonstrates how to convert DOCX Word document to PDF and receive a pixel-perfect output as a result of this conversion in Power Automate (Microsoft Flow).

You can use the pre-built Flow templates or follow the steps outlined in the article to create your Flow from scratch.

Preparation

We will take a hiring contract as a sample Word document:

Word sample for pixel perfect conversion

Use this link to download it.

Our document has to be stored somewhere. Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) has a lot of connectors for different systems. Here are just a few of them:

  • SharePoint

  • Salesforce

  • Box

  • OneDrive

  • Google Drive

  • Dropbox

  • SFTP

  • File System

You can store your source file anywhere. In this example, we will store our document in SharePoint. Our Flow will get a file from a SharePoint document library, convert it to PDF and store generated file back to SharePoint document library.

Setting up the Flow

This is how complete flow looks:

pixel perfect MS Word to PDF conversion Flow

Here is step by step description for the flow.

Flow trigger

You can actually pick any trigger. For example, you can start Flow on file creation in a SharePoint document library. We use “Manually trigger a flow” trigger here to simplify the Flow.

Get file content

This action gets file content of the specified file from a SharePoint document library. You just specify SharePoint site URL and path to your file.

You can use any other connector to get files from your system.

Convert DOCX to PDF

This is an action from the Plumsail Documents connector. It enables you to execute pixel perfect MS Word to PDF conversions.

If this is your first time using the Plumsail Documents connector, Power Automate will request the Connection Name and API Key.

Create connection in Power Automate flow

You can type any name for the connection, for example Plumsail Documents.

Once the connection name is filled out, create an API key in your Plumsail Account, copy and paste it into the Access Key field, and then click Create.

Copying an API key from the account

Just put DOCX file content from the output of the previous action and receive PDF file content as an output of this action.

You can find more information about this action here.

Create file

Now you need to store PDF file somewhere. In our example, we use “Create file” action from SharePoint connector to store the PDF document into SharePoint document library.

pixel perfect PDF result in OneDrive

You can use any other connector to store PDF document into your system.

Ready-to-use Flow templates

We have simplified the process of Flow configuration for you. Below is a clickable widget of the templates that you can start from: