Textboxweb and Aspose.word

Hello,

I see that you can turn the text from the aspose webbox control into a word document, but I’m wondering if your control can do the following…

I need to retrieve a .doc file from a database as an array of bytes in an ASP.NET program, show the document in the textboxweb object, edit, then save the results back as an array of bytes.

Can Aspose.word with textboxweb allow me to do such a thing? Namely, can I insert a word doc directly into the textboxweb component? (And if so, how?)

Thanks
ATOM
VB Dev
Prestige Software

Hi,

I am also in need of this functionality, having just spent some time evaluating both Aspose.Word and Aspose.TextBox.Web.

To extend the first question a little … does Aspose still have plans to build the Aspose.Word.Web component?

Regards
Jas.

Dear Jas,

Other developers will reply here very soon but I’m just curious about what Aspose.Word.Web should look like in your mind. May I know that? Thanks in advance.

Ben,

What we are hoping to find (in a component like Aspose.Word.Web), is a cross between the ‘Word plugin’ and a feature rich control such as Aspose.TextBox.Web.

In my particular case, we are evaluating Aspose.Word as a means of manipulating Word documents before ‘streaming’ them to the browser for viewing. At present, the browser plugin provides us with an excellent view of the document but we have no programatic control over it.

Ideally, we would like to provide the user with the ability to edit the Word doc in the browser, whilst retaining some programmatic control over this process. By programmatic control, I mean that I would like to check for changes in the document and act on them by either saving the document back to the server or alerting the user with messaging. Additionally I would like to have the ability to stream the edited document back to the server, without the user having to save the document locally.

Most importantly, we are looking for a control that does NOT depend on Word being installed on the client machine.

To use the browser plugin, the client must have Word installed on their system. This does not suit our requirements, since we normally roll our software out to a largely ‘un controlled’ environment.

So in summary, my requirements are :

  1. View Word docs within a browser
  2. Edit Word docs within a browser
  3. Save Word docs (edited within a browser) back to the originating server
  4. Independence from Word on client machines
  5. Programmatic control of the document (in the browser) to detect and act upon changes
  6. Editing controls from a toolbar, similar to those of Aspose.TextBox.Web, that retain correct Word document format.

(Effectively … I want Word as an ASP.NET component … )

I hope this is of assistance and look forward to some replies on this topic.

Regards

Jas.

Thanks for your valuable input. It has made huge sense.

Currently let’s see if Aspose.TextBox.Web Team and Aspose.Words Team work can together to provide a solution or at least a workaround for you. They will reply to you very soon.

Now I would like to address our future product line and I assume you’re interested in it so I would share it with you here at this moment.

We’re making .Net components for about 3 years. We have tried to make various components but gradually Aspose is identified by customers to be a file format hacking vendor. We love this identification and we will continue to hack more file formats, for example, this month Aspose.Flash will be a new member in the product line.

Currently what we are mainly offering is the file format hacking engines, say, they are UI-less libraries only, except the latest released Aspose.Excel.Web, which is an ASP.NET UI control that enables you to write ASP.NET apps which allows your customers to view and edit Microsoft Excel spreadsheet over Internet browsers.

But this is just a start of the product line. We will be expanding over the following directions based these file format hacking engines.

  1. Windows/Web editors/viewers. This is what you’re currently most interested. Aspose.Excel.Web is the first product to test the water, similar products for other file formats will follow gradually. You must have an immediate question: When Aspose.Word.Web is available? I hope the Auckland Team leader, Roman, will reply here. I assume he is very interested in this ASP.NET UI control and probably what’s the real problem is development resources in the meantime. To make a long story short, these UI controls will allow you to create a simplified version of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, Macromedia Flash, etc., respectively in Windows platform or Web platform.

  2. File format readers/writers/converters. Actually all hacking engines are already file format readings/writers/converters except Aspose.Pdf, just a Pdf document writer. Also these hacking engines have some converting features, for example, with Aspose.Pdf and Aspose.Word, you can save a .doc to .pdf. Also most of these products can consume .html files then produce .xls, .doc, .pdf or .ppt. Of course, reading/writing/converting business needs are unlimited and we’re fully dedicated to the mission to read more, write more and convert more. Again, in a summary, we have 100% passion to read, write and convert all popular file formats, no matter their file formats are open or proprietary.

  3. Java equivalents. Although Aspose entered into the software component marketplace via Microsoft .Net platform 3 years ago, we never ignore all developers who are developing for Java platform. Recently per customer requests, we have found our business model can be mature enough to explore the Java marketplace, we make it happen. From recent blogs posted at Aspose.Blogs, you can find our first Java product, Aspose.PowerPoint for Java will be coming in early April. Again more and more Java equivalents will be coming gradually.

Hi,

Thanks again for considering Aspose.

In order to load a Word document into the TextBox.Web control, you should save the document in HTML format into a memory stream, then get a string from that stream and then pass it to the control. Here’s an example:

Document doc = new Document(Server.MapPath("") + "\test.doc");
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
doc.Save(stream, SaveFormat.FormatHtml);
string text = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(stream.ToArray());
asposeControl.PreloadHtml(text);