Show Excel and Word documents in iOS - objective-c

I know that it's possible to read excel and word (modern)file in xml format, but i would like to know if exists a library useful only to present file content in a view... i don't need edit or manipulate files, i need to create a simple viewer.
I searched here for Excel/Word iOS viewer and library but i found nothing useful.
What do you suggest ? Is it possible create a views for these kind of file ?

You can use QuickLook framework for generating previews for documents, that can be handled by system (like iWorks or MS Office). See more information about this at http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DOCUMENTATION/QuickLook/Reference/QuickLookFrameworkReference_iPhoneOS/_index.html

Related

Can you embed a separate pdf into Indesign and open it after exporting to PDF?

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

How do I use an existing PDF as a container?

I have a PDF (created from Word) for a game I wrote for an old 8-bit computer, and I'd like to embed the code for that game (binary, less than 32k) into that PDF. This way, my emulator can load the program by reading the PDF, and the two can be stored and shared in one file.
You could call this a form of steganography.
I know a PDF has a tree structure and uses ASCII to define its components; is there a way to add inert, "orphan" elements that won't cause problems for PDF readers? I think that would be the easiest way to do it. But I'm not sure how to do it.
The simplest solution would be to use a document attachment or a file attachment annotation.
Most PDF tools that are available support these features as they are pretty basic.

Generate RTF, PDF and MS XML output files

Does anyone have any suggestions for generating RTF, PDF and MS XML reports from XCODE ?
I was thinking of creating some Objective-C classes to help do this but no doubt some may already exist.
To answer my own question...
Subclass NSDocument and generate formatted text using NSAttributedString, NSTextBlock, NSParagraphsStyle and so on...
Add the attributedString to the NSDocuments textStorage.
Add some methods to NSDocument to provide the list of supported output formats available from NSAttributedString to the Save As dialog.
It's not simple but works OK and can be used to generate formatted documents.
Things I can't figure out how to do are the following:
Make use of RTF \stylesheets so that MS Word picks up the styles used
by the different programs.
Creating new Sections, Chapters and Pages (e.g. RTF tag \page)
Creating Headers and Footers.
If anyone knows whether any of these are supported by the Apple text system please let me know. I can do this with custom RTF generator but would prefer to stick to standard API's if they exist.
Thanks

How to create and save a .rtf, .doc, .docx in Objective-C for iOS

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).

Render various document types on a BlackBerry

I need an application which can read a variety of document formats. I am looking for something that can handle word, excel, powerpoint and pdf.
I want to invoke that application from my application and then return back to my application. Are there any open source or third-party applications available that do this?
Do you need to create application which handles pdf's and other formats or you just need to be able to open docs?
AFAIK there are some pdf viewers but those i have tried are not free.