InfoPath Dev

 I am new to Infopath and InfoPath Form Services under Sharepoint.

We have a business requirement to convert Infopath Forms to PDF.  It is important to note that

1) We employ Form Services forms that are delivered from SharePoint 2007

2) The forms contain attached/embedded  documents (typically Office, additional pdfs, standard image types, etc..)

3) We researched mihumbi but this tool requires infopath client and MS Office to be installed on our servers - not desireable

4) Are there any development components that enable this capability (web Services, .NET, other)

All help would be appreciated..

Phil

Hi Phil,

...and welcome to our forum.

a few days ago I have answered a similar question in this forum. Please have a look at the following thread:

   http://www.infopathdev.com/forums/p/20504/71005.aspx#71005

Another good article regarding this issue will you find here:

http://www.bizsupportonline.net/browserforms/print-infopath-browser-form-pdf.htm 

Regards,

Hi Phil,

Let me add 2 cents from Muhimbi's perspective.

InfoPath is a very complex product, more a development environment than a document format. As a result it is not feasible to create an InfoPath runtime engine from the ground up for the purpose of PDF Conversion.

A typical InfoPath form contains the following

1. Ink Controls for capturing signatures
2. Custom C# or .NET code
3. Various connections to a number of different external data sources
4. Digitally signed sections
5. File attachments
6. Multiple Views

The only way to get acceptable results is to use InfoPath in the background, and even then it is not a trivial task. Over the last few years we have steadily made improvements. As a result many of the largest organisations in the world are now using our product for converting InfoPath forms to PDF.

We understand that running an Office application on the server is not always desirable, however the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint contains a layer of software that makes sure that any interaction with Office happens in a secure, reliable and scalable manner. You can even place your conversion server on a separate system, there is no need to run it on your SharePoint front end servers.

There are many InfoPath related posts on our blog. Some of the highlights are

I hope this helps. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.