Word Automation Services is a Service Application in SharePoint that allows software developers perform conversion (and other manipulation) of documents that are supported by Microsoft Word on the server-side. This article discusses how to set up the service in SharePoint 2013.

While word automation services is also available in SharePoint 2010, it only allowed for timer job based requests (on-demand file conversions were not possible). In SharePoint 2013, on-demand file conversions are supported and converting streams to files can be done too.

Please note that word automation services is not available in SharePoint online.

Let’s go through the steps involved in setting up a SharePoint 2013 farm (on-premise) to use word automation services.

1. You will need an active directory service account to run the word automation services application. If you don’t already have one, create it.
2. Go to SharePoint Central Administration >> Application Management >> Manage service applications.
3. Press the “New” dropdown on the ribbon and select “Word Automation Services”.
   
4. The “Create New Word Automation Services Application” dialog will open.
   
   Enter the following values:
   • Name: WAS
   • Select “Create New Application Pool” and enter the application pool name as: WASAppPool
   • For the security account, select “Configurable” and choose the AD service account you created for this purpose. You may also be able to use the SP_Farm account (which usually already exists in many SharePoint farm setups). If you hadn’t already created an AD account for this purpose, use the “Register new managed account” link to create one.
   • Check the box to “Add this service application’s proxy to the farm’s default proxy list”.
5. Click Next and enter your Database Server (will probably be pre-populated by default).
6. For Database name, enter: WASDatabase
7. Click Finish

You will now see your service and it’s proxy displayed in the list of SharePoint service applications. Like this:

If you click the link for the new word automation service application you just created (WAS), you will get to the settings page where you can update the configuration. To begin using this application, you can leave the default settings and only tweak them when you have a specific need.

Finally, go to SharePoint Central Administration >> System Settings >> Manage services on Server, and confirm that Word Automation Services is started.