Adobe PDF Services
With the Adobe Workfront Fusion Adobe PDF Services, you can extract data from a PDF file, or generate a new PDF file from data you supply. In addition, you can convert a variety of file types to PDFs, or PDFs to other file types. PDF Services also allow you to combine, compress, or read metadata for a PDF file, as well as control password protection on the file.
If you need instructions on creating a scenario, see Create a scenario in Adobe Workfront Fusion.
For information about modules, see Modules in Adobe Workfront Fusion.
For information on the API used for PDF Services, see Adobe Document Generation API.
Security considerations when using Adobe PDF Services
The Adobe PDF Services can read, convert, or modify your files, but neither Adobe nor Workfront Fusion store your files or data. This means that:
- You maintain control over your files, including their security
- You do not need to have an Adobe storage or cloud storage account to use the PDF Services.
Access requirements
You must have the following access to use the functionality in this article:
To find out what plan, license type, or access you have, contact your Workfront administrator.
For information on Adobe Workfront Fusion licenses, see Adobe Workfront Fusion licenses.
Prerequisites
To create an OAuth Server-to-Server, you must add the Adobe PDF Services API in your Adobe Developers Console. When adding the API, select the OAuth Server-to-Server option.
For instructions, see Add API to project using OAuth In the Adobe developer documentation.
Create a connection to Adobe PDF Services
To create a connection for your Adobe PDF Services modules:
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In any Adobe PDF Services module, click Add next to the Connection box.
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Fill in the following fields:
table 0-row-2 1-row-2 2-row-2 3-row-2 4-row-2 5-row-2 6-row-2 layout-auto html-authored no-header Connection type Select whether you want to create a server-to-server connection or a JWT connection. Connection name Enter a name for this connection. Client ID Enter your Adobe Client ID. This can be found in the Credentials details section of the Adobe Developer Console.
For instructions locating credentials, see Credentials in the Adobe developer documentation.
Client Secret Enter your Adobe Client Secret. This can be found in the Credentials details section of the Adobe Developer Console.
For instructions locating credentials, see Credentials in the Adobe developer documentation.
Technical account ID (JWT only) Enter your Adobe Technical account ID. This can be found in the Credentials details section of the Adobe Developer Console.
For instructions locating credentials, see Credentials in the Adobe developer documentation.
Organization ID (JWT only) Enter your Adobe Organization ID. This can be found in the Credentials details section of the Adobe Developer Console.
For instructions locating credentials, see Credentials in the Adobe developer documentation.
Meta scopes (JWT only) Enter any meta scopes needed for the connection. -
Click Continue to save the connection and return to the module.
Adobe PDF Services modules and their fields
When you configure PDF Services, Workfront Fusion displays the fields listed below. Along with these, additional fields might display, depending on factors such as your access level in the app or service. A bold title in a module indicates a required field.
If you see the map button above a field or function, you can use it to set variables and functions for that field. For more information, see Map information from one module to another in Adobe Workfront Fusion.
- Generate document
- Extract Text / Table
- Combine PDF files
- Compress PDF files
- Convert document to PDF file
- Convert HTML to PDF file
- Convert image to PDF file
- Convert PDF to document
- Convert PDF to image
- Linearize a PDF file
- OCR for PDF file
- Page manipulation
- PDF accessibility auto-tag
- PDF file properties
- Protect PDF file
- Remove protection of a PDF file
- Split a PDF file
Generate document
The Generate document module is a powerful way to create a PDF that contains data you select. You can format it by using a Microsoft Word template, or by providing data in JSON format.
For more information on the Adobe PDF Services Generate document functionality, see the Overview of Document Generation in the Adobe Document Services documentation.
Use the Generate document module with a Microsoft Word template
To use the Generate document module with a Microsoft Word template, you must first create the template. For instructions, search for “Create a template” in the Microsoft Office documentation.
Fill in the Generate document module fields as follows:
Select the connection to use for this module.
For instructions on creating a connection to Adobe PDF Services, see Create a connection to Adobe PDF Services in this article.
Select a source file from a previous module, or map the source file's name and data.
This source file is the Microsoft Word template that the module uses to generate the new PDF.
We recommend creating a project in Workfront for the Microsoft Word templates that you use in Workfront Fusion. You can then use the Workfront > Download document module to pull the appropriate template into your scenario.
Select the format for the generated document.
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PDF
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DOCX
For each value tag in your template that you want to replace with text, fill in the following:
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Key
Enter a key. In the template, the key is the text shown in the value tag. For example, if you want to place text in the value tag
{{name}}, enternamein the key field. -
Value Type
Select whether the data in the value field is a value, an object, or an array of objects.
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Value
Enter or map the text that you want to appear in the generated document in place of the value tag.
Use the Generate document module with JSON
To use the Generate document module with JSON, fill in the fields as follows:
Extract Text / Table
This action module allows you to extract data from a PDF file. The module outputs individual text elements, such as a paragraph or the text in a single cell of a table.
Combine PDF files
This action module takes multiple PDF files and combines them into a single PDF file. For example, this module could combine all of the documents in a Workfront project into a single PDF upon completion of the project.
Select the connection to use for this module.
For instructions on creating a connection to Adobe PDF Services, see Create a connection to Adobe PDF Services in this article.
You can use an aggregator module to gather documents to combine into a PDF, or you can add the documents manually.
We recommend using an Array Aggregator module to aggregate output from a previous module. By using an aggregator, you do not need to know the names, locations, or numbers of files to combine. Using an aggregator is therefore much more flexible and scalable than manually entering the documents to be combined.
To use the Combine PDF files module with an aggregator, you must enable mapping on the Documents field.
In this example, the Read Related Records module identifies documents associated with a project, and the Download Documents module downloads each one. All of the PDFs are aggregated into an array, which is passed into the Combine PDF files module.
You can also enter documents manually.
For each document to include in the combined PDF:
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Click Add a Document
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In the Source file field, select the module that outputs the document you want to include, or map the source file's name and data.
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(Optional) If you want to include only certain pages from the source file, for each page range that you want to add, click Add item in the Pages field, then enter the first and last pages of the page range to include, and click Add. You can include more than one page range from a single document.
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Click Add.
Compress PDF files
This action module takes a PDF file and compresses it. This can be useful for conserving bandwidth or memory.
Convert document to PDF file
This tool converts a document to a PDF file. The source file must be one of the following document formats:
- DOC
- XLS
- PPT
- TXT
- RTF
Convert HTML to PDF file
This tool converts an HTML file to a PDF file.
Convert image to PDF file
This tool converts an image to a PDF file.
Convert PDF to document
This tool converts a PDF file to a document. You can select one of the following formats for the output file.
- DOC
- DOCX
- PPTX
- XLSX
- RTF
Convert PDF to image
This tool converts a PDF to an image in PNG or JPEG format., which is then output as a ZIP. The PDF is converted into one image per page, and each image ends with the page number. The image files are then combined into a ZIP file.
For example, a file called “TestFile” with 8 pages would produce 8 images, named “TestFile_1” through “TestFile_8.” The module’s output is a ZIP file containing the 8 images.
Linearize a PDF file
This tool linearizes a PDF document to create a web-optimized PDF document. A linearized PDF document can be viewed page-by-page without needing to download the entire document.
OCR for PDF file
This tool performs Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on a file and produces a PDF.
Page manipulation
This module allows you to selectively rotate or delete pages in a PDF document. For example, you can change portrait view to landscape view or remove certain pages from the PDF document.
PDF accessibility auto-tag
This action module creates a PDF that is tagged for accessibility use cases. It also creates an optional Microsoft Excel report that lists problems and suggests fixes.
PDF file properties
This tool extracts basic information about the document, such as:
- Page count
- PDF version
- Whether the file is encrypted
- Whether the file is linerarized
- Whether the file contains embedded files
Protect PDF file
This tool secures a PDF document with a user or owner password. It also sets restrictions on certain features like printing, editing, and copying in the PDF document. You select the type of content to be encrypted and the encryption algorithm.
Remove protection of a PDF file
This tool removes security (password protection) from a PDF document.
Split a PDF file
This action module splits a PDF document into multiple smaller documents. You specify whether to split it by number of files, pages per file, or page ranges.