Using Python to Export all MXD's in a Directory

Question

I was just wondering if anyone knew how I could use Python to open and export all *.mxd documents in a directory (as a pdf). At the moment I can open specific *.mxd documents and export them. If I could have a code however that looks in a directory and could open all the files within it and export all the maps it would save me a lot of time.

CPoynter · Answer

Hi Sean, Try something like: import arcpy, os folderPath = r"C:\Project" outFolder = r"C:\Project\PDFs" ## create an output folder for filename in os.listdir(folderPath): fullpath = os.path.join(folderPath, filename) if os.path.isfile(fullpath): basename, extension = os.path.splitext(fullpath) if extension.lower() == ".mxd": mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(fullpath) arcpy.mapping.ExportToPDF(mxd, outFolder + basename + '.pdf') You will probably need to create ‘PDFs’ folder before running script. Regards, Craig C. Poynter Information Technology Officer (Spatial Analysis) | Research Office, Spatial Data Analysis Network (SPAN) Charles Sturt University Boorooma Street Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2678 Australia Phone: +61 2 69332165 Fax: +61 2 69332735 Email: cpoynter@csu.edu.au www.csu.edu.au csu-logo_74f41715-4530-4005-a285-3280d58d5de0.bmp

SeanConlon · Answer

Jeff,  this works almost perfectly. In testing, it created PDF's out all my MXD's in a folder,  but is it possible to output to a different folder?  I tried messing around with your code but I don't have enough knowledge to get it to work.

thanks

Sean

JeffMoulds · Answer

ModelBuilder will work, but if you want to do it in Python, like your post says, all you need is something like this that loops through all MXDs in a folder, then exports them to PDF.import arcpy, os
folderPath = r"C:\Project"
for filename in os.listdir(folderPath):
    fullpath = os.path.join(folderPath, filename)
    if os.path.isfile(fullpath):
        basename, extension = os.path.splitext(fullpath)
        if extension.lower() == ".mxd":
            mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(fullpath)
            arcpy.mapping.ExportToPDF(mxd, basename + '.pdf')