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Complex reports from C# programatically into office Word

First of all I want to say hi to the programming community, what I am looking for is a way to generate a report from my Windows Forms Application in word preferably, this report is basically a list of pre-configured days in a tour creation software I am creating.
I have searched everywhere and I cant seem to find information on how to start creating the report, I have all the information saved into a database, I just need to be able to get this information into word and ordered as it should be ordered.
I just want to be pointed in the right direction so I can research on it even further.
The exact thing I want to create is a word file that I wish I could share here so you can actually see what I mean.
Thank you for all your attention and help if possible.

I can point you in the right direction. Word documents are stored in a format called OpenXml which can be created and manipulated without actually using Word directly. That's good because you don't want to deal with code that actually starts an instance of Word and automates it (Interop.) It sort of works but it's not something I recommend dealing with ever.
OpenXml isn't fun either, but it's better. You can create your document "normally" using Word, save it, and then have your application use it as a template, opening a copy, populating some data, and then saving it.
Here's the reference for OpenXml with Word. I'm not saying it's pretty. It's not. The documentation is lacking. This page on adding text isn't linked from the previous page, even though many other topics are.
There are some nuget packages like this one that can help.
I once did a POC that did exactly what you're describing by opening and altering a document used a template using OpenXml. I'll see if I can dig up the code. But this is definitely a good direction to look in if Word is an absolute requirement.
This is a long shot, but can you output in HTML? If you can that's an even easier alternative.
Can you use Excel? That's also OpenXml but there's easier-to-use tools like EPPlus that simplify dealing with it, because it's not just the friendliest thing to work with.

An option that I would suggest is Crystal Reports. You can download the Crystal Reports add-in for Visual Studio for free from here. Crystal Reports is an easy way to perform reporting from various data sources including SQL. There are also a lot of free tutorials online for learning how to use CR. The syntax is a little strange, but it is easy enough to use.
The add-in allows you to create reports for your application and also build applications that can display, print, and export Crystal Reports.
You can export reports to .RTF (Rich Text Format) files. MS Word can open, edit, and convert RTF documents. It does a fairly decent job, but special formatting might take some work. This route is a ton easier than trying to write XML or anything else. I've written several reports designed for export to RTF. My boss runs the report, exports it, then edits it in Word. He loves the reports.
If you are planning on developing a lot of reports, purchasing the full version of Crystal Reports is well worth it. I believe they are on version 2016 currently.

If you do want to deal with automating Word, Microsoft's guide "Automating Applications Using the Office Object Model" Word-specific task content is here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/78whx7s6(v=vs.80).aspx
A larger example: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/316384
To begin, simply add an assembly reference to your project file for the correct Office Object Library (example: "Microsoft Word ##.0 Object Library"). Note that you must have Office installed to take this approach.
Good luck!

is there any way to write one code that works with all possible office documents?

I'm writing a program that modifies word documents. Currently I have used Microsoft.Office,Interop.Word to work with Word document and it requiers Microsoft Office to be installed on users computer, but some my clients don't have MS Office, but they have Open Office.
So, which library should I use instead of Interop?
and also how can I make my code to be able to work with different word files, not only .doc and .docx, but also with other office program files?
currently I'm writing different code for every type of the document..
My program translates the documents from its original language to another, so it is very important for me to keep the formatting of the document in original format, that's why I used Interop.. but also I want my program to be useful for as many people as possible

I think you are not mentioning but, are you assuming all your clients use the same version of Office. To solve the issue of the office versions, you may want to look at this open source project: NetOffice http://netoffice.codeplex.com/ and do all your .doc and .docx file formats development in using that library.
For the OpenOffice or LibreOffice, I believe the best you can do is going into the projects website and download the SDK. For example, go here: http://api.libreoffice.org/examples/examples.html and you will find some examples in Java, Python, C++ to edit Text Document including odt files.
LibreOffice SDK download here: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
And finally, there is also the OpenXML format (mentioned on another answer) which is:
ECMA Office Open XML ("Open XML") is an international, open standard for word-processing documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that can be freely implemented by multiple applications on multiple platforms.
And you can download also its SDK here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb265236.aspx
Hope that helps.

You will likely end up writing separate code to work with each file type. There may be some similarities within, say, Office products, but for the most part you're going to need an adapter for each type.
However, you could (and should) minimize the amount of duplicate code by placing the translation logic and other non-type-specific functions in a shared library that each adapter would then reference.

We are using aspose words. This supports DOC, DOCX, RTF and OOXML.
But it's not free.

How to change font in word document

I'm wondering how can I change the font (+ color and some font style) for the whole word document (excluding the page headers, if it's possible) by using C# ?
If You know any libraries (also commercial) feel free to let me know.
(After changing the font, I'll convert that word document to PDF using ABCPdf)

Depending on the library you would loop through the content (Pages/Paragraphs etc.) and change whatever font attribute you want...
Since you don't say which type of application you build - in case it is a pure desktop application and Word is guranteed to be installed locally you can use Office Interop. BEWARE that Office Interop is NOT supported by MS in server-scenarios (like IIS, ASP.NET. Windows Service, WCF etc.).
IF Word is not guaranteed to be installed and/or your application is not a desktop application and your Word documents are always DOCX files you could use OpenXML SDK V 2 from MS (free).
Otherwise I can recommend Aspose.Words (commercial) - works with old DOC and current DOCX and is usable in any type of application (desktop, ASP.NET, Windows Service etc.).

Handling Office documents in .NET is a quite straight forward task. Have a look at Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word, it is pretty well documented. Here is another link on to how you can change a word document font style using .NET (the example is in VB but is easily convertible to C#)

Start by reading on Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word
(You can google some user-friendly examples, there are tons)
Later on, read about Text Formatting
Easy, isn't it?

How to highlight text in Pdf Winforms C#

I have a pdf file which I want to open in a Windows Forms Application and perform following tasks-
View the pdf document
Zoom +/- document
Search Text
Highlight a specific text
Show it in a listbox/dropdown
select those words and highlight in pdf
Remove selection/Highlight.
I have tried using certain libraries like pdfSharp/iTextSharp even Acrobat Reader OCX control.
Its really bugging me..is there any help??

I'd suggest looking at some means of converting the PDF if you don't have a direct need to edit it. Even then, it may be easier to convert to a different form, make changes, and then convert back. PDF is a form of PostScript, which makes it powerful, but also makes it a mess to deal with and my personal preference is to skip that headache. Not always avoidable (had a lot of fun creating Thai support in PDF print#home ticket creation once without bloating the document beyond unusable), but highly recommended where possible.
Anyways, there are a variety of PDF conversion libraries out there, some of which may be available for .NET. Worst case, you may need to create a managed C++ layer to allow your C# code to access them.

Doesn't acrobat reader OCX already have all those features ? What exactly doesnt the OCX do that you need to do in your code ?
You might try contacting Adobe and getting their full SDK for PDF. It might have controls which you can use to solve your problem.
Come to think of it , is there even an SDK for PDF from Adobe ?

You have not mentioned your preference of using Free or Commercial PDF Viewer option. If you are open to use Commercial PSF viewer, you may evaluate SyncFusion PDF Viewer control, Telerik PDF Viewer, Dynamic PDF Viewer or TallComponents. I have checked feature set and all seem to have features you are looking for. I do not represent or promote any of these SDKs, I have used TallComponents and Dynamic PDF for PDF manipulation and both have excellent support, I would say PDF Veterans in .NET space.

Is there a way to generate word documents dynamically without having word on the machine

I am planning on generating a Word document on the webserver dynamically. Is there good way of doing this in c#? I know I could script Word to do this but I would prefer another option.

I've worked at a company in the past that really wanted generated word documents, in the end they were perfectly satisfied with RTF docs that had a ".doc" extension. Word has no problem recognizing and opening them.
The RTF docs were generated with iText.net (free .net library), the API is pretty easy to use, performs extremely well, you don't need word on the machine, also, you could extend to generating PDF, HTML, and Text docs in the future with very little effort. After four years the solution I created is still in place, so that's a little testimony in iText.net's favor.
It looks like the official iText page suggests that iText Sharp is the best .Net choice right now, so that's another option

You'd be better off generating an rtf file, which word will know how to open.

If want to generate Office 2007 documents check the Open XML File Formats, they're simple zipped XML files, check this links:
Open XML File Formats: What is it, and how can I get started?
Introducing the Office (2007) Open XML File Formats
Edit: Check this project, can serve you as a good starting point:
DocumentMaker
Seems very simple and customizable, look this code snippet:
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.Runs.Add(new Run("Text can have multiple format styles, they can be "));
p.Runs.Add(new Run("bold and italic",
TextFormats.Format.Bold | TextFormats.Format.Italic));
doc.Paragraphs.Add(p);

Word will quite happily open a HTML with a .doc extension. If you include an internal style sheet, you can have it fully formatted. There was previous post on this subject:
Export to Word Document in C#

Creating the old .DOC files (pre-Word 2007) is nigh-impossible without Word itself. The format is just too complex. Microsoft has released the format description, but it's enough to reduce a grown programmer to tears. There is a reason for that too (historical), but that doesn't make things better.
The new .DOCX would be easier, although quite a bit of hassle still. However depending on which Word versions you are targeting, there are some other options too.
For one, there is the classic .RTF. The format is pretty complex still, yet well documented and has strong support across many applications and platforms. And you might use some string-replacing into template files to make things easier (it's non-binary).
Then there are the "old" Word XML files. I think they worked starting with Word XP. Kinda the predecessors of .DOCX. I've used them, not bad. And the documentation is pretty OK.
Finally, the easy way that I would choose, is to make a simple HTML. Word can load HTML files just fine starting with version 2000. In the simplest way just change the extension of a HTML file to .DOC and you have it. You can also add a few word-specific tags and comments to make it look even better in Word. Use the Word's Save As...HTML option to see what they are.

There are third party libraries about that will do the job.
Doing a quick google came up with this one, for example.
I haven't tried any, so I can't give you specific advice, I'm afraid!
Let us know how you get on...

In Office 2007 Microsoft introduced a new file format called the Microsoft Open Office XML Format (.docx). This format is not compatible with older versions of Microsoft Word. Since this is XML you can create or read with out having a Word installed.

Here is the component that generates document based on the custom template. The documents are generated from the sharepoint list ... so the data is pulled from the list item into the document on the fly:
http://store.sharemuch.com/products/generate-word-documents-from-sharepoint-list
Hope that helps,
Yaroslav Pentsarskyy
Blog: www.sharemuch.com