I use ConvertAPI to on the fly convert PDFs of my presentations into individual images (something Keynote can do for you locally on your Mac, btw), to create embeddable versions of my slidedeck. This is how I create my own Slideshare service as it were. I started doing that in the fall of 2020, and the last time I converted a slidedeck was in the fall of last year.
Today in preparation for a talk I gave this afternoon I went through the same routine, but nothing happened. No conversion of slides, no embeddable files. There were no error messages either, it just stayed stuck in the conversion step. I assumed it might be an API issue and logged into ConvertAPI to check.
Or tried to login, as it said my mail address or password were wrong. I clicked reset password, but did not receive an e-mail from ConvertAPI for it. Turned out my entire account had been deleted without me being aware of it.
I recreated my account (using the same email address as before thus proving my account no longer existed), copied the new API key to my WordPress config and was all set again.
Running the same routine as before now almost immediately gave the expected result. I did have to remove the uploaded PDFs from earlier attempts in WordPress though, as trashing those items in WP does not delete the uploaded PDF file.
I don’t know why my account was deleted or why I would not have received a message announcing deletion. Perhaps it’s an automated cleanup of dormant non-paying accounts like mine. ConvertAPI is a useful service, and they generously provide 1500 free seconds (my slide decks take about 2 to 4 seconds, so that would cover 375 to 750 slidedecks)
An alternative could be ImageMagick’s array of
convertcommands? I’ve had success doing just that to convert a PDF into an image (or the other way around). I presume something similar is used by the API service. I guess it’s pretty easy to automate that yourself and just run those tools locally, or do you really need yet another third party service?You’re absolutely right. The thing is that I’m using a plugin that nicely creates pages for my presentations, and does the whole grab the pdf, convert it using that third party service, stick the result in a gallery slider routine at the same time. Meaning it all happens on the back-end of the live site the same I would create a normal post. I should dive into that plugin’s code to see where it calls that API and e.g. replace that with working with a ready made batch of images to stick into a gallery (as Keynote on Mac can provide them directly e.g.), which would entail deciding where to make the break between what’s done locally and what’s done on the webhosting package (or how to move everything there). It’s on the backlog, but it may be a while before it floats to the top of that list 😀