We're using Sandcastle for conceptual documentation and have clients that we would like to give documentation to in a non-CHM or HTML form, i.e printed. It could be Word or PDF, something simple to attach to an email. The use case usually involves someone wanting to send along a topic.
The best we've been able to do is to print from the CHM viewer or to PDF from Chrome when viewing the HTML. These have issues in that they remove anchor element clicks, turn images black and white, etc.
There's a thread on the SHFB discussions on Codeplex stating that there isn't any known alternative - http://shfb.codeplex.com/discussions/260489. I'm re-posting the question here in hopes to get more input and visibility.
I had the same need some time ago and came to the conclusion that using a CHM to PDF converter is the best recourse. I could not find one that was open-source though many have trial versions available, and I only needed to convert one document so that served my needs at the time. Note that trial/demo versions typically add a watermark or a label blazoned across the page saying "unregistered version" or some such.
A general web search reveals quite a number of candidates: while I cannot vouch for any, here are a few that seem reputable: Universal Document Converter, Theta CHM To PDF Converter, Softany CHM to PDF Converter.
2014.07.16 Update
Per #J0e3gan's comment, here is a different online converter (limited to 100MB CHM input) that looks quite promising, though I have not yet had occasion to try it.
Related
We parse a good number of PDFs, from many vendors. The PDFs are similar, but not exactly the same and things are not always in an exact same position on the same page. Some cases we are able to parse via getting the Strings from the PDF and checkboxes are Unicode. However, many vendors are not using Unicode so an image. These are never forms. So if I use iText to OCR the whole document, what does it produce for these checkboxes? Such that I can look for that and see if a checkbox is checked or not? Or am I just out of luck and the only way the data gets into our application is through manual entry? Thanks.
We are looking for a solution to generate documents in PDF/A format for sharing and also archiving purpose.
I checked the description of ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat, however it just say PDF file.
Can the Crystal Reports generate PDF/A compatible files?
I don't think you export directly to PDF/A. Instead, I recommend using Crystal to export to PDF, then find a third-party software to convert your PDF to PDF/A. It takes 1 extra step, but it will meet your needs.
I googled a bit and found http://www.abbyyusa.com/shop/pdftransformer/. I know nothing about this software, I'm just presenting it as an example. It costs 80USD, but you might be able to find a freeware alternative.
http://www.pdfa.org/doku.php is the offical homepage of PDF/A. You might find something useful there too.
According to this SAP community thread from a few days ago, it can't be done natively, although there was a third-party component mentioned there. I haven't tried it, so I have no idea if it works or not.
I'm trying to generate word documents using open xml sdk. When the documents are small this is no problem (and rather easy). When the documents become larger (+500 pages) I notice the peformance (duration, memory usage, ...) goes down significantly.
Googling this problem I came across some posts that point out the same problem. For excel there is a solution with spreadsheetgear.
I would like to know if there is a word alternative to this or if there are other solutions to generate word documents?
Thanks,
Jelle
I've written a blog post series on generating Open XML WordprocessingML documents. The approach that I take is that you create a template Word document, insert content controls, and then write XPath expressions in those content controls to specify the XML to pull from a source XML data file. I've also explored another approach where you write C# code in Open XML content controls. That approach also works.
http://ericwhite.com/blog/map/generating-open-xml-wordprocessingml-documents-blog-post-series/
-Eric
You might look at http://docx.codeplex.com/
On Java, you could use docx4j. If you were brave, you could create DLLs for it via IKVM...
I decided to go with Aspose Words. It is really fast and not very demanding on resources (CPU, memory). It has the disadvantage that it is quite expensive. I also investigated Softartisans Office writer. The posibilities are the same but due to fact that the company I'm currently working for already used other Aspose components we decided to go with Aspose Word.
The above Title is my Manager's words, not mine. :)
This is a follow-up to a question that I posted previously. After reading my assessment on the impacts of converting Word Templates from PC to Mac, I have now been asked to investigate whether Word Templates can be replaced with a "Platform-independent Web-based solution" (her words, not mine). She has suggested using Adobe Forms (ie. Adobe Designer).
Personally, I think the only truly platform-independent web-based solution is text files or html forms. What do other people think?
It's called WordprocessingML (aka. WordXML, WordML)...
Overview of WordprocessingML [Word 2003 XML Reference] at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa212812(office.11).aspx.
MSDN Search for "WordML" at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Search/en-US?query=WordML&ac=3
It could be called XForms...
The Web was suppose to be platform-independent electronic documents. In other words, if you truly want platform-independence, then I agree with you and your forms should be in HTML. Yet, HTML forms are really not a good development platform. That is why Adobe, Microsoft, and others provide "form" solutions. XForms is an attempt to make developing and using HTML forms more flexible, overcome its limitations, and provide a platform-independent object model for completing HTML forms. You might want to look at XForms at http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/.
But, I wouldn't call it PDF
In my opinion, working with PDF files is difficult. I have not looked at the file format specification, but I heard it is not trivial. Moreover, you need a custom editor and you are locked into one vendor, which is Adobe. (Yet, there are other open-source and vendors who support the file format.) Adobe is not know for creating programs that are easy to use.
My Suggestion
If you are already using Word, then moving to WordML should be fairly easy. You can easily convert your existing Word documents into WordML by simply saving them as XML from the Save Dialog; therefore, you can automate this process through code. In addition, I believe WordML supports form templates (the actual form) and data documents (the actual data for a form).
It's called PDF...
At the core (and without the million of extra unnecessary features" that's exactly the niche that Adobe PDFs were designed to fill.
I'd suggest you look more into Adobe Acrobat Professional for more info. Although, I don't think there's any good way to directly convert Word docs to PDF format.
Note: This question should be moved to Super User since it's not really programming related
Google Docs meets those requirements of a Platform-independent Web-based solution. Your mileage will vary with Google Docs though - if you just want to use it for letters, it's good. Much beyond that, it's rather limited. Unless you get the Premier (read: Corporate) version which you have to pay for, you won't be able to programmatically fiddle with the templates.
If you want a "Platform-independent solution", go with ODF or OOXML. You can make either "web-based" to your hearts content - maybe with HTML5 or another solution such as Flash or Silverlight.
Are there any good alternatives to Adobe Acrobat for creating interactive PDFs? The terminology is a little fuzzy here - by interactive, I mean "able to be filled in", and not necessarily "scriptable". So this form would be for data collection, rather than report generation which seems to be the common scenario for pdf-related questions on SO.
The trick is that they need to be fillable using Adobe Reader. For those who have not experienced the many frustrations of Acrobat - by default, Reader cannot fill in a form unless it was created using Acrobat Pro >8.0 and has specifically enabled usage rights. That's fine and it basically works (except then Pro users can't save their data - WTF?).
Because I am getting frustrated, I would ideally like to avoid Adobe products altogether (that is on the design side, for the users Reader is still a necessity or I would just do it as a db-backed web form). I'm wondering if anyone has has good experiences with alternatives? Either software libraries or products?
Thanks!
EDIT - Thanks, matt b - I'd seen iText before but didn't know it could create forms. Unfortunately, it looks like Reader cannot save filled-in data to the forms generated by iText (or generated by OO Writer). I've got the nasty feeling that what I want is fundamentally impossible except using Adobe's own rights management tools. If there are other ideas. I'd love to hear them.
You can create fillable form PDFs using OpenOffice.org as well as LibreOffice.
To create the initial form elements in the *.odt documents, enable the View --> Toolbars --> Form Controls tools, which allow you to add clickable checkboxes + radiobuttons, fillable text fields, pushbuttons and some more to the page(s).
When you're finished with your document, use File --> Export as PDF with the checkbox Create PDF form enabled.
Now your PDF form will be editable (and saveable!) with any non-Adobe PDF viewer.
NOTE, however: Adobe uses an own proprietary way to create and fill PDF forms. Adobe Reader does only support to fill PDF forms which were created by an Adobe product (and which have been assigned 'extended rights' so Reader can indeed save the formdata alongside the document).
Adobe Reader will not work with PDF forms you created with OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice ('work' in the sense of: 'allows you to fill+save the form data'.). The technical mechanism behind this is that Adobe digitally sign their form documents with their own key (which is known to the Adobe Reader, and which you agreed to not reverse engineer when you accepted the Adobe Reader EULA...). --
This means:
Non-Adobe PDF Readers will not be able to 'fill+save' forms created with Adobe products (they can 'fill+print' them however).
Adobe PDF readers will refuse to 'fill+save' forms created with non-Adobe products (they will 'fill+print' them however).
The latter two points will be true for all the tools and utilities mentioned in the other answers to this question. If I'm mistaken here, please let me know in a comment...
iText is pretty much the standard in the java-world for generating PDF files programmatically. Perhaps it can also be used to create PDFs with forms in them as you would like?
The open source page layout tool Scribus has a bunch of features oriented to creating interactive PDF forms. I haven't personally used them, but they appear reasonably complete and are covered by the tutorial.
Scribus is worth knowing about if you ever need to do serious page layout in any case.
XSL FO is some thing we used to create PDF files out of existing form data. Unless you want the fillable pdf to be sent out the client, this is a valid option.
IText lets you create Annotations (there are essentially 3 types of 'interactive' components - forms (old style FDF and new XFA) and Annotations. Acrobat and lots of third party tools should let you modify the Annotations values.
There is also a DotNet version of IText called ISharp - both are freeand extremely powerful.
CutePDF Pro allows you to turn a PDF into an interactive form.
Foxit reader allows you to save any pdf with the filled in fields.
I recently dabbled with Scribus. I found it to be an excellent tool if one has enough time to configure and play around with it. I highly recommend it. Wufoo is also very good.
I am not a fan of Acrobat / Adobe. A software should make my life easier not challenge me at every step.
If you search the net with these keywords - FREE FORM CREATOR and you can add the word HTML5.
You will find an array of sites where you can log online and all your clients can have their separate login, fill in data and the form remains in the Cloud and declutter your hard drive. All stakeholders can access the form and edit at anytime. The account can be used as a folder for your business. These forms can be accessed on any device and any platform.
Many of these forms are HTML5 driven, they are so beautiful and fluid. Keep away from macros, they carry viruses.
www.homebasedofficeservices.com