Background

For a web site that we are working on, a  lot of pictures are being taken.  Somehow some of the architectural diagrams came in as Adobe PDF files.  Our standard is JPEG and so I need to convert the PDF files to JPEG.

Map Locally

Personally, it is easier for me to work with SharePoint documents via MS Explorer as compared to working with same in a browser.

And, so connected to our SharePoint using IE and followed the button bar icons ( Library Tools \ Library \ Open with Explorer).

Once Windows Explorer comes up, noted the URL.

And, here we are mapping a previously un-used local drive to that URL.

net use t: "https://sharepoint/sites/ProjectTeam/HighFashion/Jubilee"

Conversion

I have both Adobe Acrobat and Fox IT Readers installed on my machine.  And, I tried opening up the PDF files and saving them as JPEG using both readers, but “NO GO”.

As I talked to myself and obviously stumbled, Rao said that I should just you Adobe Professional.

I checked our Software Library and we indeed have it.  But, I really do not want Capital A1 to have to pay for more stuff.

And, so went online and downloaded a trial copy of Adobe Acrobat XI Pro.

Adobe Acrobat XI Pro

Thanks goodness Adobe Acrobat seamlessly recognized that I had mapped a virtual drive to a SharePoint document library.  I like the integration piece of it asking whether to check the file out.  I obliged.

Once the file is availed in Acrobat XI Pro, I simply had to save the file as an Image; in our case JPEG.

Other supported formats includes the Microsoft Office Suite; MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

I repeated the above sequence – checked files out and converted them by saving as JPEG for a quite a few files.

SharePoint – Document Library

As I started wrapping up, I remembered that I had chosen to check-out the files.

In all truth, as I was performing the save with new file names, and so I really ought to  have  retrieved the files without checking them out.

In our SharePoint v2010, our steps will be:

• Select the file
• Right click on the selected file
• And, from the drop-down menu, choose “Send To”/”Download a copy”
• Specify where the file should be saved and confirm the file’s name

But, again, I was in a rush and chose the default choice of checking out the original files and so here I am with a need to check them back in.

As I browsed SharePoint’s Document Library Interface, I was lost as to how to identify which files I had checked out.

Fumbled again.  And, finally settled on creating a view.

View

The idea will be to create a view that as part of the file details includes the “Check Out” User.

And, will that level of detailed information, I hoped that I will be able to more readily identify which files I had checked-out.

View Definition

Here is the View we created.  You can see that we have included the “Checked Out To” column.

Columns

Filter

We set our filter as :

• Column :- “Checked Out To”
• Operation :- Is not equal to
• Value :- empty

Bulk-Check Steps

• Created the view
• Chose to display using the view
• Ordered View by “Checked Out To”
• Selected my files
• Chose to check them in or (in our case “
• Discard Check Out“)

Addendum

Identify Checked-Out files

Later in the day, as I continued working in SharePoint, I could now tell that SharePoint visually tags checked-out files.

Here is a screen shot:

The files that are checked-out have the green arrow; as in 

One more reason why I no longer work at home, on my bed, and much prefer the bigger screen and more ergonomic posture at work,

Like the AT&T Commercial, More is Better.  In our case the bigger screen and standing up in front of a computer is better.