Implement MS Word functionality in C# - c#

I am trying to reference MS Word in my C# program using the Microsoft.Office.Interop namespace. In Word, we can insert images in a document and use the "Remove Background" feature to specify a portion of the image and remove other parts. Is there a way to do this with the Interop namespace?? Or am I supposed to resort to manual methods??

Word allows to record a VBA macro in the background. Thus, you will find what properties and methods can be used to get the job done. Note, the Word object model is common for all kind of applications. See Create or run a macro for more information.
Open XML SDK is another alternative way to get the job done. But in some cases it is easier to automate Word than deal with XML. See Welcome to the Open XML SDK 2.5 for Office for more information.
Where do you run the code? A web server? ASP.NET?

Related

How to convert office file to image

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/)

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!

Read/Write/Save MS Word Document in c#

I have to open a word document using c# and do some changes in that document and save it again. Document will have lot of tables and styling. For example I have to process that document page by page. I have to change all italics to normal and all caps to small letters and save to that document only the changes without affecting the styling and alignment or format of the document.
Is that possible in c# .net? Please let me know it there any tutorial available based on my requirement. Basically I am a Java developer recently moved to c#. I have googled for past 2 days, I didn't get any proper data.
Personally, I use Aspose.NET. But that component is not free. If you need something free, I can also recommend the Microsoft Open XML Library:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericwhite/archive/2008/04/22/using-the-open-xml-sdk.aspx
I would not use Office Interop as Jim suggested. It's not very stable for server.

Programmatically Printing or converting a powerpoint to one note

Hello I want to create an application which will make things easier for me.
I always need to convert a bunch of power point documents to one note, but the process takes a few minutes for each. The process goes as follows:
1.)I have to open the powerpoint and then print>Print to Onenote.
2.)Then once Onenote opens I have to, file>save as>Page> Onenote 2007 Section.
I want create an application that will allow me to be able to browse for a PowerPoint file and then have all the slides from the PowerPoint file to be converted into a one note page and then saved in One note 2007 format.
I have experience programming using C#.
Thank you!
One simple thing you can try is to use SendKeys.
If that is not good enough, you can do the full Office interop story.

Do I need to have MS Word installed for creating Word documents from asp.net?

See title...
No.
You can use WordML (Word XML)
Word 2007 version
You can create Word 2007 documents using its XML format without the need of installing Word in your server.
This can be a starting point.
I've already +1'd Mitch's reply, but as an aside: Word isn't even supported for use in service applications; it is designed to be user-interactive. So installing Word, even if it worked, wouldn't leave you in a great place.
If you're just generating the documents from scratch the solutions so far proposed work well. My situation was that I had an existing template that I needed to use and substitute in my own text in a few places (mail merge, if you will). This was several years ago - prior to Office 2007 - but we ended up going with the Aspose library of components for this. I've used the Words and Cells (Excel) components to generate documents from templates and spreadsheets on the fly to download from web sites. The interfaces are a little clunky and can be inconsistent between the various products. The installer, frankly, is awful, but the products work pretty well and made it much easier to do what needed to be done.
Word recognizes rtf as intrinsic, and if your intended document can be constructed as whatever.rtf - which for all of its fancy formatting is plain ASCII markup - then you shd be able to write the document without Word installed.
To get the picture, create an example document and save it as an rtf file. Then view that file with an ascii text editor (like Notepad). You'll have to learn rtf syntax, but there's at least one handbook around on that.
AS
Just to add another potential solution for you, OfficeWriter is a Word/Excel API that lets you create documents and spreadsheets in ASP.NET without using Office:
http://www.officewriter.com

Categories