title: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Did not convert
body: <p>I have a perl program hosted on a windows 7, which is being called by a publishing framework hosted on a linux environment.</p>
  
  <p>This publishing framework has a Java based interface which calls the configured script (perl program calling external officetoPDF) on windows to perform the command-line conversion.</p>
  
  <p>Input files (MS Office files) are copied into windows via an FTP (IIS) for 
  OfficeToPDF.exe to convert to PDF. </p>
  
  <p>When executed locally on windows command line works fine with file converted to PDF.</p>
  
  <p>When invoked through publishing framework,officetopdf returns below message</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Did not convert</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I have another external program call for non-office ASCII file to binary file conversion inside my perl program which works perfectly fine with publishing framework call.</p>
  
  <p>I have checked the user permission,execute permission on the ms-office file before conversion and path,still not able to get around this issue.</p>
  
  <p>I also tried permission with <a href="http://www.figured-it-out.com/figured-out.php?sid=24" rel="nofollow noreferrer">related workaround</a> with no luck</p>
  
  <p>Have also come across similar issue reported but not answered in this forum</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24241164/officetopdf-not-executing-via-shell-exec">OfficeToPDF not executing via shell_exec</a></p></li>
  <li><p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11796414/convert-ms-office-to-pdf/11796615#11796615">Convert MS-Office to pdf</a></p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Any pointer much appreciated</p>