🔍 Code Extractor

Converts a Microsoft Outlook .msg file to PDF format using EML as an intermediate format for improved reliability, with fallback to direct conversion if needed.

Purpose

This function provides a robust two-stage conversion process for transforming .msg email files into PDF documents. It first converts the .msg file to EML format (a more standardized email format), then converts the EML to PDF. This intermediate step improves reliability and compatibility. If the EML-based conversion fails, it falls back to a direct msg_to_pdf conversion method. The function includes comprehensive error handling, logging, and uses temporary directories for safe intermediate file processing.

Source Code

def msg_to_pdf_improved(msg_path, pdf_path):
    """Convert a .msg file to PDF using EML as an intermediate format for better reliability"""
    try:
        # Check if input file exists
        if not os.path.exists(msg_path):
            logger.error(f"Input file not found: {msg_path}")
            return False
            
        # Create a temporary directory for processing
        with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as temp_dir:
            # First convert MSG to EML (using your existing function)
            temp_eml_path = os.path.join(temp_dir, "email.eml")
            if not msg_to_eml(msg_path, temp_eml_path):
                logger.error(f"Failed to convert {msg_path} to EML format")
                return False
                
            # Then convert EML to PDF using the more reliable function
            if eml_to_pdf(temp_eml_path, pdf_path):
                logger.info(f"Successfully converted {msg_path} to PDF using EML intermediate")
                return True
            else:
                # Fall back to your original method if needed
                logger.warning(f"EML to PDF conversion failed, trying original method...")
                return msg_to_pdf(msg_path, pdf_path)
                
    except Exception as e:
        logger.error(f"Error converting {msg_path} to PDF: {str(e)}")
        logger.error(traceback.format_exc())
        return False

Parameters

Parameter Details

msg_path: String or path-like object representing the file system path to the input .msg file. The file must exist and be a valid Microsoft Outlook message file. Can be absolute or relative path.

pdf_path: String or path-like object representing the desired output path for the generated PDF file. The directory must exist or be writable. If the file exists, it will be overwritten.

Return Value

Returns a boolean value: True if the conversion was successful (either through EML intermediate or fallback method), False if the conversion failed at all stages or if the input file doesn't exist. The function logs detailed error messages for debugging purposes.

Dependencies

• extract_msg
• reportlab
• PyPDF2
• Pillow
• PyMuPDF

Required Imports

import os
import tempfile
import traceback
import logging

Conditional/Optional Imports

These imports are only needed under specific conditions:

import extract_msg

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter

from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer

from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet

from PyPDF2 import PdfMerger

import fitz

Usage Example

import logging
import os
from your_module import msg_to_pdf_improved

# Setup logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

# Convert a .msg file to PDF
msg_file = '/path/to/email.msg'
output_pdf = '/path/to/output.pdf'

success = msg_to_pdf_improved(msg_file, output_pdf)

if success:
    print(f'Successfully converted {msg_file} to {output_pdf}')
    if os.path.exists(output_pdf):
        print(f'Output file size: {os.path.getsize(output_pdf)} bytes')
else:
    print(f'Failed to convert {msg_file}')

Best Practices

• Ensure the logger is properly configured before calling this function to capture detailed error information
• Verify that the input .msg file exists and is readable before calling the function
• Ensure the output directory for pdf_path exists and has write permissions
• The function automatically cleans up temporary files using tempfile.TemporaryDirectory context manager
• This function depends on three helper functions (msg_to_eml, eml_to_pdf, msg_to_pdf) that must be implemented in the same module
• The fallback mechanism provides resilience but may produce different quality results - monitor logs to understand which conversion path was used
• Consider implementing retry logic or additional error handling at the caller level for critical conversions
• The function returns False on any error, so check the logs for detailed failure reasons

Tags

Similar Components

AI-powered semantic similarity - components with related functionality:

• function msg_to_pdf 86.3% similar

  Converts a Microsoft Outlook .msg email file to a single PDF document, including the email body and all attachments merged together.

  From: /tf/active/vicechatdev/msg_to_eml.py

• function msg_to_eml 85.4% similar

  Converts Microsoft Outlook .msg files to standard .eml format, preserving email headers, body content (plain text and HTML), and attachments.

  From: /tf/active/vicechatdev/msg_to_eml.py

• function msg_to_eml_alternative 80.0% similar

  Converts Microsoft Outlook .msg files to .eml (email) format using extract_msg library, with support for headers, body content (plain text and HTML), and attachments.

  From: /tf/active/vicechatdev/msg_to_eml.py

• function eml_to_pdf 68.1% similar

  Converts an .eml email file to PDF format, including the email body and all attachments merged into a single PDF document.

  From: /tf/active/vicechatdev/msg_to_eml.py

• class FileCloudEmailProcessor 63.4% similar

  A class that processes email files (.msg format) stored in FileCloud by finding, downloading, converting them to EML and PDF formats, and organizing them into mail_archive folders.

  From: /tf/active/vicechatdev/msg_to_eml.py