Tutorial: Learn About Supported File Formats in GroupDocs.Conversion Cloud

Learning Objectives

In this tutorial, you’ll learn:

  • How to retrieve all supported file formats in GroupDocs.Conversion Cloud
  • How to get supported conversion formats for a specific file type
  • How to process and utilize the formats information in your applications

Prerequisites

Before starting this tutorial, you should have:

  • A GroupDocs.Conversion Cloud account (get a free trial if needed)
  • Your Client ID and Client Secret credentials
  • Basic understanding of REST APIs
  • Familiarity with your preferred programming language (C#, Java, PHP, etc.)

Why Learn About Supported Formats?

Before attempting any document conversion, it’s essential to know which formats are supported by the API. This knowledge helps you:

  • Design appropriate file upload interfaces for your users
  • Implement proper validation for input files
  • Provide users with accurate conversion options

Tutorial Steps

Step 1: Set Up Your Environment

First, let’s set up our development environment and initialize the necessary components to work with the GroupDocs.Conversion Cloud API.

Try it yourself:

  1. Create a new project in your preferred IDE

  2. Install the appropriate GroupDocs.Conversion Cloud SDK for your language:

    • For .NET: Install-Package GroupDocs.Conversion-Cloud
    • For Java: Add the dependency to your pom.xml
    • For PHP: composer require groupdocs-conversion-cloud/groupdocs-conversion-cloud-php
    • For Node.js: npm install groupdocs-conversion-cloud
    • For Python: pip install groupdocs-conversion-cloud
    • For Ruby: gem install groupdocs_conversion_cloud
    • For Go: go get github.com/groupdocs-conversion-cloud/groupdocs-conversion-cloud-go

  3. Set up your authentication credentials:

// C# example
string MyClientSecret = ""; // Get from https://dashboard.groupdocs.cloud
string MyClientId = ""; // Get from https://dashboard.groupdocs.cloud

var configuration = new Configuration(MyClientId, MyClientSecret);
var apiInstance = new InfoApi(configuration);

Step 2: Retrieve All Supported File Formats

Now, let’s retrieve all the supported file formats from the API:

Using cURL

# First get JSON Web Token
curl -v "https://api.groupdocs.cloud/connect/token" \
-X POST \
-d "grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=xxxx&client_secret=xxxx" \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-H "Accept: application/json"

# Get supported formats
curl -X GET "https://api.groupdocs.cloud/v2.0/conversion/formats" \
-H "accept: application/json" \
-H "authorization: Bearer [Access Token]"

Using C# SDK

try
{
    // Get supported file formats
    var response = apiInstance.GetSupportedConversionTypes(new GetSupportedConversionTypesRequest());

    Console.WriteLine("Available conversion formats:");
    foreach (var entry in response)
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"Source format: {entry.SourceFormat}");
        Console.WriteLine($"Can be converted to: {string.Join(", ", entry.TargetFormats)}");
        Console.WriteLine();
    }
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Exception while calling InfoApi: " + e.Message);
}

Step 3: Get Supported Formats for a Specific File Type

Sometimes you may need to know which formats a specific file type can be converted to:

Using cURL

curl -X GET "https://api.groupdocs.cloud/v2.0/conversion/formats?format=docx" \
-H "accept: application/json" \
-H "authorization: Bearer [Access Token]"

Using C# SDK

try
{
    // Get supported file formats for DOCX
    var response = apiInstance.GetSupportedConversionTypes(
        new GetSupportedConversionTypesRequest(null, null, "docx"));

    foreach (var entry in response)
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"DOCX can be converted to: {string.Join(", ", entry.TargetFormats)}");
    }
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Exception while calling InfoApi: " + e.Message);
}

Step 4: Get Supported Formats for a Specific Document

You can also check which formats are supported for a specific document that’s already in your storage:

Using C# SDK

try
{
    // Get supported file formats for a specific document in storage
    var response = apiInstance.GetSupportedConversionTypes(
        new GetSupportedConversionTypesRequest("conversions/sample.docx", "MyStorage"));

    foreach (var entry in response)
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"The document can be converted to: {string.Join(", ", entry.TargetFormats)}");
    }
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Exception while calling InfoApi: " + e.Message);
}

Step 5: Process and Utilize the Format Information

Now that you have the format information, let’s implement a practical example that builds a user interface to show available conversion options:

// Example: Building a dropdown list of target formats for a given source format
public List<string> GetTargetFormatsForSourceFormat(string sourceFormat)
{
    try
    {
        var response = apiInstance.GetSupportedConversionTypes(
            new GetSupportedConversionTypesRequest(null, null, sourceFormat));

        if (response != null && response.Count > 0)
        {
            return response[0].TargetFormats.ToList();
        }
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Error getting formats: " + e.Message);
    }
    
    return new List<string>();
}

// Usage example
var pdfTargetFormats = GetTargetFormatsForSourceFormat("pdf");
Console.WriteLine("PDF can be converted to these formats:");
foreach (var format in pdfTargetFormats)
{
    Console.WriteLine($" - {format}");
}

Troubleshooting Tips

  • Authentication Errors: Make sure your Client ID and Client Secret are correct and that you’re generating a valid JWT token.
  • Empty Results: If you get empty results for a specific format, check if the format name is spelled correctly (e.g., “xlsx” not “excel”).
  • API Connection Issues: Ensure your network allows outbound connections to the GroupDocs API endpoints.

What You’ve Learned

In this tutorial, you’ve learned how to:

  • Set up your environment to work with GroupDocs.Conversion Cloud API
  • Retrieve all supported file formats
  • Get conversion options for specific file types
  • Get conversion options for documents already in storage
  • Process and utilize the format information in your applications

Further Practice

To reinforce your learning, try these exercises:

  1. Create a simple web form that dynamically updates the target format dropdown based on the selected source format.
  2. Implement a function that checks if a specific conversion path is supported (e.g., DOCX → PDF).
  3. Build a utility that validates user uploads against supported formats.

Next Tutorial

Now that you understand the supported formats, proceed to our next tutorial: Tutorial: How to Convert Documents to learn how to actually perform conversions.

Helpful Resources

We’d love to hear your feedback on this tutorial! Please feel free to ask questions or suggest improvements on our support forum.