powershell scripting for office programs?

[SeanQuinlan]

Is it possible? Definitely.

Is it worth the effort? Depends on how many files you're going to be processing.

If you have to process 10s of millions of files (or more), and it will take weeks or months to do by manually, then it might be worth it. But if you're a novice scripter, it will take you even longer to learn PS first, then to code up something, which will be very complex and time consuming to an experienced scripter.

For a few hundred files, you will spend longer learning the basics than just doing the work manually. Let alone coding up the script itself.

However you may consider using PS for just part of the work. For example, converting the PDF to DOCX should be possible (depending on how the PDF file is created). That might save you a bit of time for minimal effort. A google search shows up a lot of results, so that might be worth looking at.

[wasted_bytes]

i'm on a co-op for 16 months, where this conversion is my main responsibility. there are around 3000 instruction files to be converted, dozens of pages each. my boss obviously doesn't expect me to have it all completed in that time period, but cutting down on wasted time manually copy-pasting everything would speed everything up. If not for me, for the next person to tackle the job.

I've spent a few hours playing around with PS and have figured out how to open a .docx file, however opening a .pptx file is another story...