Method and apparatus for effecting secure document format conversion

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The invention provides a method and apparatus for effecting secure document delivery in any of various document formats.
The invention encrypts the document with the public key of a server associated with the recipient of the document, instead of encrypting the document with the public key of the intended recipient.
For purposes of the invention, it is assumed that the receiving server is located within a firewall.
The encrypted document is forwarded to the server within the firewall.
The server decrypts the document using its corresponding private key, converts the document to a new data representation, and then either forwards the document to the recipient inside the firewall, or re-encrypts the document with the public key of an intended recipient outside of the firewall or with the public key of another server that is associated with the intended recipient of the document.