I'm working on a project in .net that has a need for a document preview function.
I've implemented a Webview2 control and, as the majority of doucments that need to be viewed are pdf, this works a treat.
However, now and again some documents may be in either docx or xlsx format.
When I set webview2.Source = New Uri(PathtoFile) on these files, the webview2 control downloads the document to my downloads folder rather than rendering it.
I get that the files are not HTML, but then again neither are PDFs and they work out of the box.
Is there some mechanism I'm missing whereby I can have the Webview2 control display the file contents for docx and xlxs rather than download?
We are having the same problem ourselves. At the moment we are using a product called Aspose that will allow us to convert Word Documents to XPS, after which we can display the document in a Document Viewer.
While this works, and it works well, the main problem is that this relies on us downloading the document, then converting it and then loading the converted document into the Viewer. Which causes a certain perception of "sluggishness" due to all of that work, whereas images and PDFs, especially when hosted on the Web, can be hosted directly in the WebView2 and this then leaves the rest of our application nicely responsive to user interaction.
So in case anyone comes up with a better suggestion, I'm following this ...
The code using Aspose is pretty straightforward (example in Visual Basic .NET):
Dim oDoc As Aspose.Words.Document = Nothing
oDoc = New Aspose.Words.Document(sFile)
oDoc.Save(fileName:=sToFileName, saveFormat:=Aspose.Words.SaveFormat.Xps)
(left out all error handling and so on in order to focus on the actual functionality. sToFileName just contains a filename along the lines of [somefolder][yourtargetfilename].xps ...)
I guess you may try to convert DOCX to PDF directly via Aspose.Words and XLSX to PDF via Aspose.Cells. Both these APIs support rendering to PDF or even image formats. Since your viewer supports to view PDF or images, so you may try this approach, it might work for your needs.
PS. I am working as Support developer/ Evangelist at Aspose.
Related
I would like to ask the following if possible. We have a client that wants a separate pdf document, embedded in a main pdf document and opens when you click it. Like the function in MS Word where you can attach another Word document inside a Word document (Word-ception, lol) and you can still open it.
I've tried it in Acrobat Pro with the Attachment and Link tools. Another option was to put the link document in an ftp server for accessibility. but our client really wants this functionality. Is this possible in Indesign?
Thank you!
Using Word as your example vehicle there are several ways to link 2 documents.
One is an appendix to the other, in PDF terms is a merge or binding but its one flowing document with separate sequential sections/chapters.
Another way is to link to an external file, in PDF terms a hyperlink to a relative second file, which can be locally folder relative or a web absolute reference. You have tried that.
In Word we can add objects internally with icons, in PDF that can be an annotation comment attachment to save externally and action accordingly. You also seem to discount that approach.
Finally PDF offers an Adobe Specific Structure where multiple PDFs attachments can be imbedded in an overall PDF wrapper. These are called Portfolios and not! to be confused with their portfolio service
They are unpopular since in a browser without Adobe Reader they should only offer the cover page.
Whilst in securer offline readers the files may well be shown as attachments that you need to save or independently open to view them.
Only some non Acrobat viewers may view them as a collection. And in the past that required runing insecure SWFlash, But I understand that has changed ?
Here is how the 3 internal PDF files seen above were shown in older Acrobat 9.
Possibly the best experience is using Foxit Reader
This is not a back-end programming question. I can only modify the markup or script (or the document itself). The reason I'm asking here is because all my searches for appropriate terms inevitably lead to questions and solutions about programming this functionality. I'm not trying to force it via progrmaming; I have to find out why this PDF is behaving differently.
So:
I have a bunch of links to PDFs on a page. Most of them open in new tabs, but one of them, the most recent, starts to open in a tab, but then the tab closes and the PDF gets downloaded as a file instead. All markup is consistent - there's nothing differnt about the odd-man-out except the actual URL.
You can see this here:
http://calwater.mwnewsroom.com/Investor-Relations/Financial-Reports/Annual-Reports
All annual reports up to 2012 open in a new tab, but 2013 downloads instead.
This leads me to believe that there is some meta-data property of the PDF itself that tells it how to open, and that, in this case, the 2013 PDF was created using different settings.
Apparently, the PDF was saved out to PDF from InDesign.
Does anyone have any insight?
Problem solved. There was simply an error in the string (like an extra period) that references the attachment such that it couldn't tell it was a PDF. Fixing the reference fixed the problem.
I am looking to create and save either a rtf, doc or docx file on an iPad (iOS).
The scenario is that we'd like to assist a user in creating content on their iPad and then let them email this as an editable document cross-platform (OS X, WIN).
I am open to other solutions besides the rtf, doc or docx file format.
Thanks,
James
RTF is going to be the easiest, because it's a plain text format. It's kind of like HTML, but without closing tags. Here is a class for writing an RTF, but it requires a lot of dependencies from elsewhere in the framework.
DOCX would be rather difficult. It's actually a zip file, containing a few XML files. You can examine the format yourself by changing the .docx extension to .zip and unzipping it. But even though XML is a fairly easy to write format, the way the text attributes are organized is still rather complicated. Also, I recall that it has to be zipped in a very specific way to be read properly.
As for DOC, it will be very difficult because it's such a complex format. You could look into some open source projects, like Abiword or Word2x. Be careful using their code because the licenses may not agree with the App Store rules.
I've seen doc & docx readers for iPhone (App store entry linked here), but I don't know of any open source frameworks you can make use of.
RTF format should be pretty simple to write, if you're up to the challenge. There is no built in framework support for it (here's a related question, b.t.w.).
Maybe you could write out something in a regular TEXT format and e-mail that?
Docmosis has a cloud service that you can reach from iOS. You can ask it to render a doc in various formats (doc, rtf, pdf, odt etc) and email it off or stream it back - though you have to be connected. Previewing DOC on iOS is possible but a little flaky. One option is to stream PDF back for display on iOS and email editable document (which can be done in one call).
i would like to display a pdf on my winform and am thinking of using of those tools in my vb.net application. does anyone know the difference between the two?
Microsoft Report Viewer reads report definition files and displays the report. Adobe's PDF reader displays PDF files.
Report definition files != PDF files, so you would need to make sure that you use the right tool for the right job. If you need to read PDFs, use a PDF reader.
As for consuming a PDF on a WinForm, you could host a WebBrowser control and point to the PDF. Alternately, there are several WinForm control manufacturers that read and display a PDF file (though I've not used any of them so would not be able to recommend one over another). Examples would be:
http://www.tallcomponents.com/
http://www.skysof.com/
We are using Blackberries to display PDF reports. Here are background details on the problem:
The PDF reports are created using JasperReports.
Report format can be changed.
Different report formats are available (as per the feature set of JasperReports).
The PDF reports are on a website, too, so retaining a single source is ideal.
The page setup is in Landscape.
Here are the issues we have encountered:
Users cannot see a full line of text on the Blackberry.
The size of the PDF and UI makes reading difficult, at best.
The menu option to convert the PDF to text loses too much formatting to be useful.
The text is blurry (and too small).
Here are solutions we have thought about:
Create a second report (not ideal) in text or HTML format.
Simplify the original report format (not really an option, given the amount of data).
What other options are there for making a report available on the Blackberry, given the constraints of JaserReports, such that the report:
Is legible?
Is formatted for readability?
Displays quickly?
Essentially, we'd like to make sure there are no simple solutions we have overlooked for displaying legible PDFs on Blackberries.
We convert TIFFs to PDF for one of our applications, and have had mixed results with BlackBerry PDF viewers. These were our results.
Working
The following PDF readers worked for our purposes:
RepliGo Reader v1.1.1.1 - $19.95
Works fine.
DataViz Documents To Go Premium Edition v1.003.001 - $49.99
Works and includes a word wrap option to get the current zoom level to fit the available screen width, by moving text onto subsequent lines. Might fit your needs.
Non-Working
The following PDF readers did not work for our purposes:
BeamReader v1.0.8 - $17.99
BeamSuite v3.0.2 - $49.99
These couldn't open our PDF files ("Unsupported document format"). In addition they did not register as a PDF content handler, required for our application.
MasterDoc - $19.95
eOffice - $29.95
These also did not register as a PDF content handler. We had a range of problems with these, including installation issues, and not being able to open any PDFs at all.
Try BeamReader http://www.slgmobile.com/beamreader.html
I hear it's the best at reading PDFs for BlackBerry
How about outputting the file to an RTF or an image file (JPG/GIF), and then viewing them in your web browser?
If that doesn't work well on the native browser, I would focus on viewing the file via some other web browser - for example, Opera Mini. I know for images it's easier to navigate "big" images in Opera Mini than the native browser.
If your blackberries are on a BES server, couldn't you display the reports as HTML on your corporate intranet? - Then you could email a link to the blackberry and simply browse the report.
You can convert pdf to image via xpdf and than show image. xpdf is a BEST renderer of pdf.