How to configure Chrome headless shell in your Document Converter for SharePoint or Document Converter Services products

Headless functionality will be removed from Google Chrome on 8 January 2025. This may have an impact on your HTML-to-PDF and email-to-PDF conversions.

Cloud solutions

Our cloud solution users aren’t impacted. We take care of everything for them.

On-premises solutions

On-premises customers might have to make changes to their configuration to be able to continue using our HTML-to-PDF and email-to-PDF conversion functionality.

Users of version 10.3.0 or earlier

If you’re using Document Converter (previously Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint or Muhimbi PDF Converter Services) version 10.3.0 or earlier, you don’t have to do anything and you won’t be impacted by this change. Additionally, you can’t configure your system to use Chrome headless shell.

Users of version 10.3.1 or newer

If you’re using HTML converter in Document Converter for SharePoint or Document Converter Services versions 10.3.1 or newer, then you might be impacted.

You only have to make changes if:

  • You’re using the Chrome application to convert HTML or email into PDFs.

  • You’re using Windows Server 2016 or a newer operating system (Chrome is no longer updated for Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier).

Determining what you’re using

You can verify if you’re using the Chrome application by examining your configuration file. Open the Muhimbi.DocumentConverter.Service.exe configuration file in a text editor — usually located in C:\Program Files\Muhimbi Document Converter — and look for the following configuration entries:

<add key="HTMLConverterFullFidelity.UseInstalledChromiumBrowser" value="Chrome"/>
<add key="HTMLConverterFullFidelity.ChromiumPath" value=""/>

If you’ve set UseInstalledChromiumBrowser to Chrome, then you’re using the Chrome application for HTML-to-PDF conversion. In this case, do one of the following:

  • Switch to using portable Chromium (BlinkBinaries) instead of the Chrome application. Instructions on how to use portable Chromium — aka BlinkBinaries — can be found here.

  • Switch to using Chrome headless shell.

If you wish to use Chrome headless shell, follow these steps:

  1. Download our Chrome headless shell updater application[]. Important: .NET Framework 4.8 or later must be installed.

  2. Extract the Nutrient.ChromeHeadlessShellUpdater.exe application into the installation folder of the Document Converter service (usually found at C:\Program Files\Muhimbi Document Converter) and run it as an administrator.

  3. Select option 2 (update Chrome headless shell package). This will download the latest Chrome headless shell and place it in the ChromeHeadlessShell folder next to your service executable.

  4. Change the configuration file of the conversion service to point to the newly downloaded ChromeHeadlessShell folder — usually found at C:\Program Files\Muhimbi Document Converter\ChromeHeadlessShell — like so:

<add key="HTMLConverterFullFidelity.UseInstalledChromiumBrowser" value=""/>
<add key="HTMLConverterFullFidelity.ChromiumPath" value="C:\Program Files\Muhimbi Document Converter\ChromeHeadlessShell\"/>

  1. Restart the conversion service.

Rerun the Nutrient.ChromeHeadlessShellUpdater.exe application any time in the future to update the Chrome headless shell to the latest stable version.