pipeshub-ai File format conversion
Supported conversions
| From | To | Default (Node) | Fallback (Python) |
|---|---|---|---|
| csv | xlsx / json / html | papaparse (parse to array of objects) → exceljs (xlsx) / JSON.stringify (json) / a hand-rolled <table> loop (html — no library needed for this) |
pandas.read_csv → .to_excel / .to_json / .to_html — reach for this when the conversion needs real reshaping (pivots, group-by, dtype coercion) along the way, not as a first choice |
| xlsx | csv / json / html | exceljs (read) → papaparse.unparse (csv) / JSON.stringify (json) / hand-rolled html |
pandas.read_excel → .to_csv / .to_json / .to_html |
| json (tabular/list-of-records shape) | csv / xlsx | JSON.parse → papaparse.unparse (csv) / exceljs (xlsx) |
pandas.read_json → .to_csv / .to_excel |
| image (png/jpg/webp/etc.) | different image format, resize, basic edits | sharp (.toFormat(...), .resize(...)) |
Pillow (Image.open(...).save(new_path)) |
| docx | plain text | — (no solid Node equivalent for structured docx parsing) | python-docx / docx2python — extract paragraph and table text |
| plain text / csv (tables) | — (no solid Node equivalent for table-aware extraction) | pdfplumber — extract_text() / extract_tables() → build a DataFrame if tabular |
For plain csv/xlsx/json reshuffling, default to the Node path (an array of plain objects is the common intermediate, playing the same role pandas.DataFrame plays on the Python side) per this environment's Node-first policy — reach for pandas only when the conversion needs real data reshaping along the way. docx/pdf extraction and structure-aware parsing have no solid Node equivalent here, so those stay Python regardless of format on the other end.
NOT supported in this environment
These all require a document-rendering engine (LibreOffice) that is not installed in the sandbox yet. Tell the user directly rather than attempting a workaround (e.g. do not try to fake a "pdf" by screenshotting text, and do not claim success on a conversion you didn't actually perform):
docx→pdfpptx→pdfdoc(legacy binary Word format) →docxxlsx→pdf- Any conversion that requires rendering/rasterizing a document (visual layout to image)
Choosing between "extract data" and "convert format"
If the user's underlying goal is "get the numbers out of this PDF/docx into a spreadsheet" rather than literally "convert this file", extracting the relevant data and writing exactly the columns/rows they need is usually a better outcome than a generic whole-file conversion — ask yourself which one they actually need before picking an approach.