Opening Documents without Office

Aspose.Words Product Family
1

Hi,

We’re trying to build a Windows application without the need for an Office license but still allow our users to view and generate Word documents (specifically mail merges). We tried the trial and figured it out but how can a user view the actual document without Office installed? Is this possible? Does Aspose provide a “viewer”?

i.e.

  1. User opens our app and generates a mail merged Word document with the Aspose library.
  2. Our app should open the document up so the user can verify it, save it/print it/forward it, etc.

We tried playing with the preview/print capabilities but that seems to make into an image. We need the Word document to remain intact since the user can forward this document and edits can still be made.

We also checked some other free viewers including MS Office Word Viewer but it states “You may use the software only to view and print files created with Microsoft Office software.”

Open Office is another option but we’d rather not have to install this.

Also, does anyone have a sample Windows app that can demo similar to what we’re looking for?

Thank you.

2

Hi John,

Thanks for your inquiry. Aspose.Words for .NET is a class library that enables your applications to perform a great range of document processing tasks. So, it does not offer any UI or web control for performing these document processing tasks on web page or windows application.

Our sister company GroupDocs.com offers a viewer app which you may consider including in your application to view the various file formats. With GroupDocs apps, you can also have limited editing functionalities. For more information, we suggest you please contact GroupDocs support through live chat or support forums of GroupDocs.

Please let us know if you have any more queries.