I convert Provisional Applications into Utility Patents all the time (about 4 times so far; I currently have 32 US Patents). That is the whole point of a Provisional; to establish a Priority Date for an disclosed invention. Then you have a year to file a Utility Patent based on that Priority Date or abandon the idea with out it ever being disclosed to the public. What a good Provisional does is fully disclose your idea and it should be at least an outline of the Invention Disclosure section of the the Utility Patent Application. You probably will have thought it through in the time since you have filed the Provisional. And maybe filled additional Provisionals which also apply. Claims are optional in Provisional Patents and you are not held to them. But I always write one or more just to ensure my Provisional disclosure supports the intended Claims fully. The legal boilerplate and Claim writing is where you need a good support system in a Registered Patent Agent or a Patent Attorney. Both are registered to practice Patent Law before the US Patent Office and to do the legal filing. Get rmendations from friends. My personal advice is to avoid big firms ($$$) and find small firms or sole practitioners which have low overhead and often give you better personal service. I work with an sole-practitioner Attorney a couple of states away entirely by phone and Email. It is more efficient and good education for you to draft the disclosure (using a similar patent in the field as a reference model) and let him edit it. Have your Agent or Attorney do a quick search before you waste too much time on writing to ensure somebody else hasn already thought of the idea and to reckon how much Claim space is available to you. Claim writing is something he need to do and you need to agree with it Your job is to make sure your disclosure full supports the Claims. Drafting Claim ideas is good training for you and will focus them on what you think is novel. Initially you probably want to overreach on the Claims and negotiate downward during the Patent Examination. Thepiling and legal filing of the Patent Application as well as the back and forth interaction with the USPTO assigned Examiner must be done by a Patent Agent or Patent Attorney. Expect to spent $532k and at least 2+ years to get a Patent issued. And there maye a time where it bees clear that you idea is not new or the Claims are so narrow that they have little economic value. Don waste resources on vanity patents; focus your resources on inventions that have $$$ value to SOMEBODY Patents protecting an invention that you or somebody can make or use or Patents that you can sell or license. Good luck!