After thinking about how to use Aspose.Word in my new project, I started to wonder if Aspose.PDF would be easier. My project involves retrieving data from a database and then inserting text into the template for auto-layout-formatting of documents. Not sure if this was discussed before but I would like to know which tool is best for the job.
Besides the PDF vs DOC format issue, are there any advantages over one another? Which one has finer layout control? If you had to choose one or the other, which one is the most flexible for layout publishing automation?
The way we promote building reports or documents is simple:
Design your report in Microsoft Word. It is a great text editor and makes a great visual report designer. Use merge fields and/or bookmarks to mark locations in the document you want the data inserted later.
Open the document using Aspose.Word and populate it with data using our mail merge (reporting) engine. It is more powerful that MS Word’s standard mail merge, for example it allows to grow tables or portions called mail merge reiongs inside a document. Other features like custom mail merge handlers or direct manipulation of document content are available too.
Deliver the document to the customers. Aspose.Word can save the document in DOC, HTML or in Aspose.Pdf.xml that can be picked up by Aspose.Pdf to produce PDF output.
So it is not a question of what to use Aspose.Word or Aspose.Pdf really, they are often used together. You can of course use just Aspose.Pdf, but you will have to create the XML that you need to feed into Aspose.Pdf somehow programmatically yourself - not a great way to design reports.