I have an old PC on which i have a large pst file , and i have the idea to write a small C# program to spilt it into smaller files so that i can better manage them if needed ( i know that sounds weird and that there are also available tools in google but i thought it will be fun to play with it ).The problem is that i can't find good article or API info which functions are best suited ( if there are any at all ) for managing those files , Ideas ?
Thanks in advance
Take a look at Redemption API. This API does not require Outlook to be installed (only stand-alone MAPI) and does not require outlook to run.
First just a clarification by PST file you mean you outlook information?
Running on that I know of no API to manipulate it but you can get the documentation for it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff385210(v=office.12).aspx this is a large and complex specification for a binary format. Always play with a copy of it not the real thing.
One approach that might be better is using the ActiveX/COM interface provided by outlook to interact with this file abstractly, so instead of dealing with the physical layout of the file work with contacts, folder and email messages.
It may be worth your while finding out how open source mail clients (Like thunderbird) import from outlook. You may be able to pull there code out into an API, as long as you follow the licence conditions.
Not the easier answer, but it is the one I have.
Related
need a bit of help here. Does anyone know how to open files such as PCM, PRF, PAD, KMP, STY, and PCG in .Net? It doesn't matter if it is included in .Net or if it is from a third-party library. I need to be able to view their content, edit them, and convert them from one format to another.
Thanks.
nAudio is going to be the library of choice here. It's the easiest one to work with on the market that I've found. Further, we have an application in production today serving 14K+ users with that library, so it's production ready.
Alvas.Audio allows to convert many types of audio files with help DirectShow filters. There are many examples of the use of the library.
Hi i'm new programming and i have written few application to access pdf content by using some dll files, but now my question is how can we write our own dll to access the pdf files. I know it's a big process but i'm very much interested to learn about this. any one please help me.
You can start by reading the PDF specification (warning 32MB behind this link) in order to understand how the PDF file format is implemented. This is necessary if you want to be able to parse it and extract the information you are interested in.
In the meantime (as this reading might occupy you during a certain amount of time) if you have pressing project deadlines you probably want to use an existing library such as iTextSharp.
I know it's a big process but i'm very much interested to learn about this.
That's true. I'd like to suggest to study some open source APIs (iTextSharp) and PDF SDK.
I know this is a little subjective, but I'm looking into the following situation:
I need to produce a number of documents automatically from data in a SQL Server database. There will be an MVC3 app sat on the database to allow data entry etc. and (probably) a "Go" button to produce the documents.
There needs to be some business logic about how these documents are created, named and stored (e.g. "Parent" documents get one name and go in one folder, "Child" documents get a computed name and go in a sub-folder.
The documents can either be PDF or Doc(x) (or even both), as long as the output can be in EN-US and AR-QA (RTL text)
I know there are a number of options from SSRS, Crystal Reports, VSTO, "manual" PDF in code, word mail merge, etc... and we already have an HTML to PDF tool if thats any use?
Does anyone have any real world advice on how to go about this and what the "best" (most pragmatic) approach would be? The less "extras" I need to install and configure on a server the better - the faster the development the better (as always!!)
Findings so far:
Word Mail Merge (or VSTO)
Simply doesn't offer the simplicity, control and flexibility I require - shame really. Would be nice to define a dotx and be able to pass in the data to it on an individual basis to generate the docx. Only way I could acheive this (and I may be wrong here) was to loop through controls/bookmarks by name and replace the values...messy.
OpenXML
Creating documents based on dotx templates, even using OpenXML is not as simple as (IMHO) it should be. You have to replace each Content control by name, so maintenance isn't the simplest task.
SSRS
On the face of it this is a good solution (although it needs SQL Enterprise), however it gets more complicated if you want to dynamically produce the folders and documents. Data driven subscription gets very close to what I want though.
Winnovative HTML to PDF Convertor*
This is the tool we already have (albeit a .Net 2.0 version). This allows me to generate the HTML pages and convert those to PDF. A good option for me since I can run this on an MVC3 website adn pass the parameters into the controllers to generate the PDF's. This gives me much finer-grained control over the folder and naming structures - the issue with this method is simply generating the pages in the correct way. A bonus is that it automatically gives me a "preview"...basiclly just the HTML page!
Office OpenXML is a nice and simple way of generating office files. XSLT's can be strong tool to format your content. This technology will not let you create pdf's.
Fast development without using any third party components will be difficult. But if you do consider using a report server, make sure to check out BIRT or Jasper.
To generate pdf's I have been using the deprecated Report.net. It has many ports to different languages and is still sufficient to make simple pdf's. Report.net on sourceforge
I dont think SQL Server itself can produce pdf files. What you can do is, as you mentioned, install an instance of SSRS and create a report that produces the information you need. Then you can create a subscription to deliver your report to where you want, when you want.
Here is an example of a simple subscription:
Go for SSRS only if you are OK with setting it up on a server and there is a definite need for schedule reporting and complex reports.
If you have code for manual PDF/docx generation, I would suggest to go ahead with it. Hopefully the complexity of its code is not a matter to you.
I have used both in separate scenarios. We used excel classes and objects from .NET for a minimal reporting from a web application.
But went for an elaborate reporting scheme for a system which required 1000s of reports to be generated in a scheduled manner and delivered to selected set of people.
I am expoloring currently an AutoCAD .NET API to create a dwg files from winform.
Is this possible or should I look for another library?
Are there any new tutorials of doing so?
thanks
Thanks for all your answers .... I will stick with my old DXF implementation, since this is personal project.
Here you have exacly how to do it. AutoCad includes an API for doing that. The problem is that you need to have AutoCad in the computer where your application remains.
I think your only choice if you want DWG is to use OpenDesign. If you don't want to pay what that costs, you can write DXF instead. I have used VectorDraw, which does give a reasonable object model, and can export DXF without any extra component (I think), or use OpenDesign to write DWG.
Autodesk sell a library called RealDWG which allow you to read and write dwg file with C# without AutoCAD installed. ~ 2500 € / year.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=770257
You can also use DXF, which is easier to read and write (text file). The reference can be found here : http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=12272454&linkID=10809853
As mentioned by others, OpenDesign is one possibility. It is, however, prohibitively expensive for small companies; we have started using CadLib, which is far cheaper and seems to do the trick so far. It writes to DXF or DWG, and has fairly good documentation.
If you're planning to create the file without having autocad running, then you CANNOT use the .net API. The use of the .net API basically requires AutoCAD (or the CoreConsole) to be running for it to work. (You can open other databases but you'd be doing it in process from Autocad.
If you don't want it running in process you can use the Interop API.
Or the other alternative is to is to write to a DXF format which can then be imported into AutoCAD (or any other CAD program) which is capable of reading the format.
I want to display and edit MS Excel File from client side using ActiveX COM object. The user would be allowed to edit the file and save it to local PC. Then It can be uploaded to remote server.
So, can you give me some example of displaying Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc document in Internet Explorer 8.0 using COM. I could not find such ocx files for that purpose . Can you help me finding it.
Thanks
Maksud
I think those controls would violate the MS Office distribution or EULA licensing agreements with Microsoft. Since an ActiveX control that emulates Word, Excel, PowerPoint would potentially give unlimited and anonymous users access to the software without paying for it. There's other Microsoft technologies that allow you to leverage the end-user's MS Offices licenses that allow them to save back to the web server. I think WebDAV used to be used (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781730%28WS.10%29.aspx), I don't know what's out there now, but I'm sure there's a solution.
I wonder if the use of Google Docs would solve these issues. I'm pretty sure there's a way to leverage some sort of mix of Google Docs and the associated APIs to do something akin to what you are trying to do. I admit this isn't quite a perfect match for your goals.
This sounds like a use case that Office Live Workspace was created for. It's free, it's collaborative, and it allows you to determine sharing permissions.