Aspose.word.net Ctrl

[Kalan]

Hi,

I'm trying to replace existing MS Word mail merge functionality by using Aspose Word .Net Ctrl.
Not sure, how to render/print document without using Ms Word. My understanding is that Aspose.Word does not require Microsoft Office to be installed on the machine in order to work. In my Openedge 10.2b appication, I need to replace existing code OS-Command no-wait value(<.doc extension file name) with some workaround to open .doc word document using Aspose Word .Net Ctrl.

Could someone pls suggest on this?

Thanks.

 

[Osborne]

Looking at the various methods there does not appear to be one for opening a Word document in Word itself:

Document Methods - Aspose.Words for .NET - API Reference

There is a print option, so something like this should work:

myDocument:Print().

 

[Cringer]

Can you not install the free M$ Word viewer?

 

[Kalan]

Thanks, Osborne & Cringer.
Yes, along with MS Word viewer its working fine. but I want to make sure whether Aspose.Word.Net can be implemented without any MS Word/viewer dependency OR it must have at least MS word viewer? By looking the Aspose.Word.Net there is no minimum requirement or pre-requites of word viewer or MS Word installation at the client machine. I can see the Aspose.Word.Net built-in method/function to open .doc extension file when its implemented using C#.net or VB.net but I am not sure about the approach when we use this .dll assembly file in Openedge. - Thanks again.

 

[Osborne]

It does appear to be the case that you do not require MS Word/Viewer to create documents:

"With Aspose.Words you can view, generate, modify, convert, render and print documents without using Microsoft Word."

I can see the Aspose.Word.Net built-in method/function to open .doc extension file when its implemented using C#.net or VB.net but I am not sure about the approach when we use this .dll assembly file in Openedge

Providing your version of Progress can use .NET controls, it just requires the .dlls to be added to the assemblies.xml file - create if none currently exists - and you should be able to access the various options without requiring Word.

 

[Rob Fitzpatrick]

It does appear to be the case that you do not require MS Word/Viewer to create documents:

I believe that's been the case since Word 2007, when the Open Office XML standard was released. A .docx file is a zip container, containing XML and other artifacts. In theory, you can use the standard to guide you to take your content and create a .docx file with it, without having to use Word.

 

[Cringer]

The alternative to Aspose is docxfactory: DocxFactory Project | Free and open source cross platform C/C++ library with C#, Java, Python, Progress 4GL wrappers and command line tools for generating Microsoft Word .DOCX (OpenXML) files.
The advantage of this is that it was written by a member of the OE community. That being said, I'm not sure if it currently supports mail merge functionality, but it's something Alon would probably be receptive to adding if it was asked for. Or it's open source so you can do it yourself