I need to deploy a visio visualization programmatically. For the moment I just need to add sticky notes with the attributes: size, position, color, text on it and text alignment, but the solution should be expandable with further shapes in the future. The information about the shapes is stored in google cloud firestore database. I am quite open for any kind of solutions and code language, but if possible it would be great to run google cloud functions, which supports Node.js, Python, and Go, but I also read about supporting .NET, moreover it should be open source if possible.
I am totally not an experienced code developer, thus it would be great if you could provide some code examples. That's what I actually miss in all the documentation I found.
As far as I researched the Visio 2016 SDK would be interesting in this case. But I didn't find close examples as I need. F.e. this link shows how to replace text in a shape, or this link shows how to add a rectangular shape. But the explanation is rare...
I analyzed the visio file itself with master..XML, page..XML etc., but the amount of values is confusing. And this leads me to the question how the SDK will handle this? How can I define master shapes, how do I format them?
Another option would be the Apose.Diagram API, but I am not shure if the sticky note is supported. An example is provided here. Unfortunately it's commercial, but if there is no other option i would go for it.
Thanks for advice!
just as an information about the actual state: i kind of "solved it" with manually manipulating the vsdx. the vsdx is just a compressed zip-file with ending .vsdx. If you rename it to .zip, you will see many xml-files. the file page1.xml is the one important if you just need to place simple shapes without relations to each other.
In the page1.xml there are xml-parts named as , just manipulate & multiplicate these parts.
I didnt try the sdk yet, or an third-party solution like apose.diagram, but for the actual use case of visualizing objects in form of a rectangle its good enough
Related
I am searching from last two days but did not find any thing.
My requirement is to create a document viewer in my web application (C#.Net) and I don't want to use any third party tool for this. Can I convert the files in image or PDF or in any common formate which can be easly render on web page. I also can not use Introp object.
Any help will be highly appreciated
You mention in one of your comments that you'd like to write all the code yourself but don't know where to start. Here's how I would go about it...
First, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the Microsoft Office Format specification. You can find that here (there's a link to the technical specification). Office documents are actually a .zip file with an XML file inside along with any binary data representing attachments. Just renamed a .docx file as .zip and you'll be able to open it up and see the XML and any other supporting documents inside (same is true for xlsx, etc...).
Then you'll need to become intimately familiar with either PDF or HTML, as your job now will be to convert the various Office document structure into PDF or HTML structure, being sure to respect page layout, margins, order, etc...
As others have said, this is a large task which is why third party tools exist today. Also, each third party toolset has it's limitation as this is really hard to "get right" in all situations and there will be edge cases that work for one document and not another (because maybe they didn't use Microsoft Word to save the .docx, maybe they used OpenOffice and OpenOffice interpreted the standard slightly differently...)
If you cannot use COM/Interop technologies in your solution, you can take a look at the specialized 3rd party options. I see that you prefer not to use them, however, there are no existing built-in solutions in the .NET Framework. Check out my answer in a similar thread that describes how to accomplish exactly the same task using 3rd party libraries (for example, DevExpress, since I have experience with it). In addition, take a look at the Documents demo, where you can see how to create images/thumbnails from different types of MS Office documents.
I believe what you need is an intermediate representation of the documents which can be converted into an image for the viewer to display.
Lets me try to explain with the below diagram:
You can use tools like smallpdf or OfficeToPDF to do that. Just integrate them into your application.
Small PDF(https://smallpdf.com/library-detail)
officetopdf (https://officetopdf.codeplex.com/)
Is there a way to programmatically create PowerPoint presentations? If possible, I'd like to use C# and create PowerPoint 2003 presentations.
Yes, you can.
You will want to look into MSDN which has a pretty good introduction to it.
I might give you a word of warning, Microsoft Office interop is compatible with an API which is now more than 10 years old. Because of this, it is downright nasty to use sometimes. If you have the money to invest in a good book or two, I think it would be money well spent.
Here's a starting point for you. Use the search feature on MSDN MSDN Webpage. It's good for any Microsoft C# .NET style stuff.
Specifically in regards to your question, this link should help: Automate PowerPoint from C#. EDIT LINK NOW DEAD :(. These two links are fairly close to the original KB article:
Automate Powerpoint from C# 1/2
Automate Powerpoint from C# 2/2
Finally, to whoever downvoted this: We were all learning one day, how to do something as a beginner is most definitely programming related, regardless of how new someone might be.
OpenXML looks like the way to go from a web app.
Using the interop libraries is not recommended, as others have stated.
You can also look at Aspose Slides, a component for .NET and Java that makes it easy to generate powerpoint documents.
If you don't really need PowerPoint compatible output, consider using a markup language such as LaTeX with the Beamer package to produce a PDF of the presentation, or use HTML and javascript in a manner similar to Slidy. If you need fancy effects, it might still be easier to use SVG, and you'd have the benefit of getting output that can be reliably viewed with free software.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/magazine/cc163471(en-us).aspx
Use this link. Although this is in VB.NET, C# supports the same.
You may also try out SlideMight, a tool for merging hierarchical data with PowerPoint templates.
SlideMight supports:
text substitution in text fields, tables and notes
image substitution, from raw data, files and URLs
images in tables nested
iterations over data to create slides
iterations to populate tables, possibly spanning multiple slides
special formatting for specific cell values
hyperlinks to generated slides
Input data format is at this time just JSON.
There are versions for Windows and Mac OS X.
More information is at http://www.SlideMight.com
Disclaimer:
I am the owner of Delftware Technology, the company that developed SlideMight.
And I am one of the developers.
You can use Essential Presentation product from Syncfusion Software Private Limited. This product can be used to
Create and manipulate PowerPoint presentations
Open, modify, and save existing PowerPoint presentations
Convert PowerPoint presentations to PDF or Image
More information is at https://help.syncfusion.com/file-formats/presentation/overview
Disclaimer:
I work for Syncfusion Software Private Limited
I'm trying to create a web script that will allow me to alter PDF templates that I have uploaded and re-output them. I have tried Zend already which allows me to write to a PDF but that means leaving the PDF blank in certain space which is to primitive for what I need. PDFFlip was not any better.
We need to implement functionality so we can remove content from the PDF as well as remove and replace. I have looked at CAM::PDF and changepagestring.pl but I'm not sure it's up to the job. I was hard pressed to find any real usage examples and Perl is not a language I have used before.
This is for a web project but I am flexible with the language we use, ideally PHP or ASP.NET C# would be great. Preferably not Java unless there is no other way.
I should also point out that I looked through the FoxitReader SDK without any luck. I never tried to implement it but I found no mention of find and replace like functionality.
You can tinker with PDF text but it is not straight-forward just to search and replace. The text is designed as an end-file format not for easy editing. I wrote a blog post explaining some of the issues at http://pdf.jpedal.org/java-pdf-blog/bid/12670/PDF-text
May be as workaround it's better to hold and fill in templates in some format that is more convenient for editing? E.g., you can keep your templates as Microsoft Word templates and then export them to PDF after filling. This thread may be useful on this way.
PDF file format isn't quite appropriate for editing.
Alternatively, you may prepare your templates as PDFs containing form fields. In this case filling of form fields is common and well-known task and there a lot of pdf components for this.
I'm in need of a solution to print or export (pdf/doc) from C#. I want to be able to design a template with place holders, bind an object (or xml) to this template, and get out a finished document.
I'm not really sure if this is a reporting solution or not.
I also don't want to have to roll my own printing / graphics code -- I'd like all display concerns handled in a template.
I initially think of this as something Crystal Reports can do (although I've never used CR), but I'm not sure if I'm abusing the system here -- I'm not really interested in binding ADO.NET datasets at the moment (screw datasets). Can Crystal deal with binding to objects?
Does SSRS or WPF play in this field too?
A subset of WPF-P is XPS which can be used to present your objects via databinding.
One of the best choices if you are already using WPF.
Google Keywords: XPS, FixedDocument, FlowDocument, WPF Printing
Might read through this thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/nhusers/browse_thread/thread/e2c2b8f834ae7ea8
Seems a lot of people like iTextSharp
http://itextsharp.sourceforge.net/
For Word docs, look into Word's Mail Merge feature and Word automation. I did this recently in a form letter printing project. Basically what I did was create a Word template file (file extension .dot) and in this template file I defined MergeFields in a standard form letter. My application queries a database for the records it needs to print and then for each record it returns it matches fields in the database with these merge fields and sends the result (the merged doc) to the printer.
It's working really well and if I had a link that gave a definitive explanation, I'd provide it (check back here, I'll see if I can't find the most useful ones). Hopefully I've provided enough keywords to let you find your own resources. I can go into more detail if you need.
I've never had to export PDF files but for a project I'm working on now I'll have to. For a free solution my research has lead to iTextSharp (like Will Shaver points out) but I've only done the initial investigations and I have found a few pay solutions I might end up resorting to.
Well, heres my scenario.
Client/Server winforms application with SQL Express as the DB. I need to be able to print invoice, packing slips etc..
i would like the customer to be able to modify the invoices. ie. be able to put their logo or change font sizes etc...basically format the display.
Things i have considered so far are.
1) Use a template engine (similar to codesmith or mygeneration) and use templates that output HTML. Then print the html page.
2) Use ReportViewer in local mode. I've heard that users can download a plugin for web dev express and edit the local report files. can anyone confirm this?
3) Use Reportviewer in remote mode.
I don't have much experience with ReportViewer so I'm not sure if i should use local or remote mode as well.
Those of you that have done this kind of thing before whats your recommendation?
After just completing a project with it, I would heartily recommend iTextSharp to create your invoices and other forms as PDFs. In addition to creating PDFs from scratch, you can also use it to fill in PDF forms and/or templates created with Acrobat (or even MS Office/OpenOffice). And it's free.
It's pretty easy to use in Windows apps or in ASP.Net applications. Most of the documentation and the books on it (iText in Action, for example) are about the original Java version, iText. However, there are tutorials and example code on the conversion process and, for the most part, all of the functions and libraries work the same in the .Net version, so adapting the book and reference code has been no problem.
I definitely learned the hard way that HTML and CSS are great for browsers (well, great except for the "every browser interprets it different" problem), but horrible for trying to generate consistent, attractive, and precise printed output and forms.
I'm personally using Aspose Words: they use word documents as templates, and I'm using Words bookmarks function to mark and retrieve the fields I need to fill.
Aspose works nicely with Tables (ie: you can add lines to a table, etc...) and sees Word documents as XML documents. You can then save the document as MSWord or PDF.
I wouldn't say it's the greatest library in the world, but it's definitely worth having a look :)
you can use Crystal Report for this. But first you need to scan the INVOICE and save it as an image,
Next is, on your crystal report, export the image on to it, and DRAG the fields to where they must print on the invoice (IMAGE SERVES AS YOUR GUIDE). Then after everything has been set-up, DELETE THE IMAGE and try it.
hope this helps.