[Java] Web editing of Word documents and save back to web server. Firefox2+ and IE6+

Hello,

I’m in the process of evaluating Aspose products for Java.

We have an AJAX-heavy rich internet application to which we would like to add Word document editing facilities.

I seek clarification of the following:

  1. Is it possible to deliver a Word document to the web browser (Firefox2+/IE6+) for editing and subsequent save back to the server without the user having to manually upload ie. save button on editor seamlessly streams edited document back to server?

  2. I noticed that the Aspose.Editor (whose UI I havent yet seen) only works with IE and requires .NET runtime. Is there an alternative?

  3. We have read up on why it is not a good idea to use OLE automation to manipulate Word documents in a server environment. We have legacy code in our back-office application that does exactly this. Does Aspose provide an alternative for Word document manipulation for non Java/.NET clients?

Thanks

Toby Stuart
Figtree Systems

Hi
Thanks for your request.

  1. Aspose.Words does not have graphic UI; Aspose.Words is library for programmatically editing or creating documents. I think that you can retrieve the document to the client side as RTF or HTML and display it in some control that supports retrieved format. After editing retrieve RTF(or HTML) back to the server, load into Aspose.Words model and save in DOC format.
  2. You are right, there is only .NET version of Aspose.Editor and it requires IE browser. Here is Aspose.Editor demo:
    https://products.aspose.app/words/editor
  3. What do you mean when say “non Java/.NET clients”? For example you can also use Aspose.Words in PHP project. See the following link.
    https://docs.aspose.com/words/java/php-and-aspose-words-for-java/
    Best regards.

alexey.noskov:

  1. Aspose.Words does not have graphic UI; Aspose.Words is library for programmatically editing or creating documents. I think that you can retrieve the document to the client side as RTF or HTML and display it in some control that supports retrieved format. After editing retrieve RTF(or HTML) back to the server, load into Aspose.Words model and save in DOC format.

Thanks Alexey.

After some reading yesterday I discovered this. As you suggest, we would most likely use a web based HTML editor for edit/display of converted Word documents and use Aspose.Words for conversion back to DOC and save on the server. I’m unclear as to the required format of the HTML that Aspose.Words would use to convert from HTML to DOC…is this published somewhere?

How are page-breaks (and other document specific features eg. headers/footers) preserved between DOC->HTML->DOC conversion? Is this something we must manage ourselves? Is there a list of Aspose.Words HTML tokens (or similar) that denote special document features such as page-breaks?

alexey.noskov:
2. You are right, there is only .NET version of Aspose.Editor and it requires IE browser. Here is Aspose.Editor demo:
https://products.aspose.app/words/editor

Saw that. Any plans for a Java version? A cross-browser solution?

alexey.noskov:
3. What do you mean when say “non Java/.NET clients”? For example you can also use Aspose.Words in PHP project. See the following link.
https://docs.aspose.com/words/java/php-and-aspose-words-for-java/

I meant like a C, Perl or Python client. Using the .NET COM interface should be fine however. Are there binaries available if we purchase? We have no plans to install a .NET development environment to compile. <<< Ignore this quesion I should have read more.

Many thanks

Hi
Thanks for your request.

  1. There are no special requirements to HTML. But there are some restrictions. Please see the following document to learn more:
    https://releases.aspose.com/words/net
    Also this document contains restrictions of DOC to HTML conversion.
  2. I think that you should ask this question in Aspose.editor forum. They will answer you shortly.
    https://forum.aspose.com/c/words/8
  3. I currently work on manual “how to use Aspose.Words with Python”. I will let you know as soon as I finished. I plan to use JPype to bridge Java and Python.
    https://docs.aspose.com/words/python-net/

Best regards.

Thanks Alexey

Hi
I already created manual “how to use Aspose.Words with python”. Things are the same as in the PHP. Please see attached documents. I use JPype to bridge Java and Python and pywin32 to use COM in Python.
I hope this could be useful for you.
Best regards.