JASS Universal File Converter

A lightweight PySide6 desktop application for converting documents, Markdown, text, HTML, PDFs, and images between commonly used formats.

The application is designed to be simple, local-first, offline-friendly, and dependency-conscious.

✨ Features

• Markdown conversion
• Plain-text conversion
• HTML conversion
• PDF text extraction
• Image-to-PDF conversion
• Pandoc-based document conversion
• Batch conversion
• Add individual files or folders
• Custom output folder
• Automatic converted output folder
• Progress indicator
• Conversion log
• Windows and Linux friendly
• No WeasyPrint dependency

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🔄 Supported Conversions

Markdown

Source	Target
.md, .markdown	.html
.md, .markdown	.txt
.md, .markdown	.pdf

Text

Source	Target
.txt	.md
.txt	.html
.txt	.pdf

HTML

Source	Target
.html, .htm	.pdf
.html, .htm	.txt

PDF

Source	Target
.pdf	.txt

Images → PDF

Supported image formats include:

• PNG
• JPG / JPEG
• WebP
• BMP
• TIFF / TIF

Pandoc Formats

When Pandoc is installed, the application can provide broader conversion support for formats such as:

• DOCX
• ODT
• RTF
• EPUB
• Markdown
• HTML
• TXT

Actual Pandoc conversions depend on the installed Pandoc version and its supported readers/writers.

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🧠 PDF Conversion Without WeasyPrint

This version deliberately does not use WeasyPrint.

Markdown and HTML PDF generation use ReportLab, avoiding the GTK/Pango native-library problems that can occur with WeasyPrint on Windows.

PDF engine

ReportLab

Benefits:

• No GTK installation
• No Pango DLL requirement
• No WeasyPrint dependency
• Local/offline PDF generation
• Suitable for everyday document conversion

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🛠️ Requirements

Python

Python 3.10 or newer is recommended.

Required packages

Windows

py -m pip install PySide6 markdown reportlab pypdf pillow

Linux

python3 -m pip install PySide6 markdown reportlab pypdf pillow

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📦 Optional: Pandoc

Pandoc enables additional document conversion capabilities.

Windows

winget install --id JohnMacFarlane.Pandoc

Verify:

pandoc --version

Debian / Ubuntu / MX Linux

sudo apt install pandoc

Verify:

pandoc --version

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🚀 Running the Application

Windows

py .\JASS_Universal_File_Converter_v1.1_No_WeasyPrint.py

Linux

python3 JASS_Universal_File_Converter_v1.1_No_WeasyPrint.py

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🖥️ How to Use

1. Add files

Click Add Files to select one or more files.

Use Add Folder when you want to process files from a directory.

2. Select the target format

Choose the desired output format, for example:

PDF
Markdown
HTML
TXT
DOCX
ODT
RTF
EPUB

3. Choose the output folder

Select a destination folder if required.

If no custom destination is selected, converted files are placed in a converted folder associated with the source location.

4. Start conversion

Click Convert.

The progress bar and log show the conversion status.

5. Review the log

The log reports successful conversions and failures, together with useful error information.

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📄 Example: Markdown → PDF

Input:

MyNotes.md

Select:

Target Format → PDF

Output:

MyNotes.pdf

The PDF is generated locally with ReportLab.

Example Markdown:

# My Notes

This is my document.

- Item one
- Item two
- Item three

No WeasyPrint or GTK libraries are required.

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🔧 Conversion Engines

Conversion	Engine
Markdown → HTML	Python Markdown
Markdown → TXT	Built-in processing
Markdown → PDF	ReportLab
TXT → HTML	Built-in HTML generation
TXT → Markdown	Built-in processing
TXT → PDF	ReportLab
HTML → PDF	ReportLab
HTML → TXT	HTML parsing
PDF → TXT	pypdf
Image → PDF	Pillow
DOCX / ODT / RTF / EPUB etc.	Pandoc

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🔐 Privacy & Offline Use

JASS Universal File Converter is designed for local file processing.

Normal conversions do not require uploading files to a cloud service.

The application does not require:

• Cloud conversion services
• Remote document processing
• WeasyPrint
• Internet access during normal conversion

Pandoc also performs conversions locally once installed.

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⚠️ Limitations

Conversion quality depends on the source and target formats.

For example:

• Complex PDF layouts may not convert perfectly to TXT.
• PDF-to-TXT extraction depends on the PDF's internal text structure.
• Complex HTML/CSS styling is not reproduced completely by the ReportLab PDF engine.
• Scanned/image-only PDFs require OCR and are not automatically converted into editable text.
• Pandoc conversions depend on Pandoc's supported formats and installed components.
• Image-to-PDF conversion does not perform OCR.

For highly complex documents, specialized conversion software may preserve the original layout better.

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🧩 Troubleshooting

Python / pip

If pip is not recognized directly on Windows, use:

py -m pip --version

Then install packages with:

py -m pip install PySide6 markdown reportlab pypdf pillow

PySide6 missing

py -m pip install PySide6

ReportLab missing

py -m pip install reportlab

pypdf missing

py -m pip install pypdf

Pillow missing

py -m pip install pillow

Pandoc conversions fail

Check:

pandoc --version

If Pandoc is not found, install it and restart the application.

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🏗️ Project Structure

Typical layout:

JASS Universal File Converter/
│
├── JASS_Universal_File_Converter_v1.1_No_WeasyPrint.py
├── README.md
└── converted/

The application is intentionally maintained as a single Python GUI application, making it easy to copy, run, and maintain.

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📌 Version

v1.1 — No WeasyPrint

Highlights:

• Removed WeasyPrint
• Removed GTK/Pango dependency
• Markdown → PDF uses ReportLab
• HTML → PDF uses ReportLab
• Improved Windows compatibility
• Pandoc support retained
• Local-first conversion workflow

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📜 License

If no license file is included with the repository, all rights remain with the project author.

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👤 JASS

JASS Universal File Converter

A practical local-first utility for working with documents, Markdown, PDFs, images, and other digital content.