Developers are always on the look out for products which enable then to create new and interesting .NET applications, and clients keenly look forward to easier ways to access them. Report generation has become a part and parcel of every .NET application. Moreover, the presentation of reports has been changed with the evolution of many third party products such as OfficeWriter.
OfficeWriter is a quality product developed by the leading .NET component vendor, SoftArtisans. It consists of WordWriter, ExcelWriter and Reporting Services Integration. With the help of these products, you can create Microsoft Word and Excel documents and reports on a live web server without using either Microsoft Word or Excel.
You can download an evaluation version of the product (Standard Edition) from the website of the vendor. This version will be valid for a period of 30 days from the date of installation. The file is around 19 MB. The installation wizard will prompt you to choose the products which have to be installed (WordWriter, ExcelWriter or Reporting Services). Once you install the product you can access the license key manager, samples and online documentation from the start menu.
I immediately upgraded the Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition since it contains many rich APIs which are not found in the Standard Edition. SoftArtisans quickly responded to my request to upgrade the eval version and supplied the required instructions for the same. I upgraded the product without any hassles.
One of the interesting points to note with regard to the product is that you can easily generate quality documents using just a few lines of code. The documents generated by OfficeWriter are in their respective native formats; they preserve all the features of the original product. Documents can be viewed by thousands of concurrent users without compromising performance. Moreover, you need not worry about licensing issues, because the end web server doesn’t require Microsoft Word or Excel in order for you to work with the product.
With the help of OfficeWriter, you can develop applications in two ways: code based or template. Moreover, according to the vendor, WordWriter and ExcelWriter can generate around 100, 000 documents in an hour. I feel that this is practically not possible unless you have a very high connectivity speed. The documents generated by the product can be saved to the disk, or viewed using a standard web browser. Version 3 of WordWriter comes with lot of features such as the ability to add paragraphs, creation of bulleted and numbered lists, insertion of tables and images, creation of hyperlinks, headers, footers and much more, which will surely enable you to develop robust .NET applications.
One of the notable features of ExcelWriter is that it ships with HotCell Technology, which enables you to update a server side data source directly from the client side. ExcelWriter supports advanced features such as charts, pivot tables, VBA, macros, multiple sheets, image insertion, named ranges and page layouts. Version 6 of ExcelWriter ships with several new features such as Complete API for charting, insertion and deletion of rows and columns, formula support for all built-in Excel functions, and support for 3D ranges. Moreover, the product provides full runtime control of the Microsoft Excel file format.
OfficeWriter also comes with integration for SQL Server Reporting Services. With the help of OfficeWriter’s Reporting Services' integration tool, you can design and deliver reports in native Word or Excel. It is an enhanced version of Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services. The tool comes with an OfficeWriter designer and renderer. The main purpose of the designer is that it helps you to create a report template using Word or Excel instead of traditional Visual Studio .NET. The template makes use of RDL technology for publishing on the reporting server. I found that the OfficeWriter renderer works perfectly with the designer. The main job of the renderer is to interpret the information contained in the template.
The main feature of OfficeWriter’s Reporting Services designer is that it delivers reports directly from Word or Excel. Hence, you need not spend time on learning development tools such as Visual Studio .NET, and also can avoid the huge licensing costs involved with these tools. Moreover, OfficeWriter generates real RDL files which allow you to take full advantage of Reporting Services' report management and security features. Version 3 of the Reporting Services integration ships with many features, such as the ability to open existing RDL files created using Visual Studio .NET and other development tools; the ability to browse the reporting server directly from Word or Excel; support for context sensitive help; support for parameterized reports, queries, number and date formatting, and much more.
You should go through the online documentation in order to understand how the product works. I found that the quick start guides include step-by-step instructions for creating robust applications using the product. You can learn more about the working of the product by going through the sections titled "How to Create Word Reports" and "How to Create Excel Reports." I found that the documentation is very elaborate and contains all the required information in a crisp format. The manual includes a comprehensive reference section for Reporting Services integration. However, when I clicked the menu Reference | Microsoft RDL files on the documentation, it opened up a section covering Excel’s Formula Manager. I hope the vendor will look into this issue and update the manual accordingly.
Let us now work out a short demo of how easy it is to generate a Word document using ASP.NET.
You can use either a plain text editor such as NotePad or Visual Studio .NET. If you decide to work with NotePad, you should place the two DLL files (SAWW3NET.dll & SAXW6NET.dll) inside the bin folder on the working directory. If you work with Visual Studio .NET, you should add references to the above DLL files. With VS.NET, you can take advantage of its IntelliSense feature, which will simplify the coding process.
The first step is to import the required namespaces as shown below:
Imports System Imports System.Web.UI Imports SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.WordWriter
The Word file can be easily generated using the following code:
Namespace SoftArtisans.WordWriter.MyOfficeWriter
Public Class MyWordDoc : Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
Private wordapp As WordApplication Private docu As Document
Protected Sub Page_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) TriggerDocument() End Sub
Private Sub TriggerDocument()
wordapp = New WordApplication() docu = wordapp.Create()
wordapp.Save(docu, Page.Response, "MyWordDocument.doc", False) End sub End Class End Namespace
Additionally, you can add text to the Word file using the code given below:
docu.InsertTextAfter("This document is generated by SoftArtisans OfficeWriter Enterprise Edition. ", False) docu.InsertTextAfter("This document is generated using 30 days evaluation edition", False)
The final output will be as shown in the figure given below:
Let us now look at how to generate a simple Excel document using ExcelWriter. Copy the code given below and execute it appropriately.
Imports System Imports System.Web.UI Imports SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter
Namespace SoftArtisans.ExcelWriter.MyOfficeWriter
Public Class MyExcelDoc : Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
Private excelapp As ExcelApplication
Protected Sub Page_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) TriggerDocument() End Sub
Private Sub TriggerDocument()
excelapp = New ExcelApplication() Dim wbook As Workbook = excelapp.Create() Dim wsheet As Worksheet = wbook.Worksheets(0) wsheet.Cells(0, 0).Value = "This excel document has been generated by using
SoftArtisans OfficeWriter Enterprise Edition"
wsheet.Cells("C2").Value = "Microsoft" wsheet.Cells("D2").Value = "Oracle" wsheet.Cells("E2").Value = "Sybase" excelapp.Save(wbook, Page.Response, "MyOfficeWriterExcelDocument.xls", True) End sub End Class End Namespace
Unfortunately, the vendor doesn’t provide the documentation for the product in an HTML Help format along with the installation setup. I hope the vendor will provide this soon, so that users can access the documentation offline. However, providing documentation online will surely help the users to get up-to-date information about the product easily.
The vendor also provided detailed online documentation for the product on their support website. They have also made available a separate manual for the product that covers working with the Java platform. For more support, you can post your queries to the support forum located at http://support.softartisans.com/Forums/ and the answers will be provided directly by the appropriate product team. The vendor is very helpful and quickly responded to all my queries regarding the product through e-mail.
The product comes with sample applications, which you can access from the start menu. You can also access these demos from the online documentation. The required virtual directories are automatically created at the time of installation of the product.
I had to make a minor version modification on the IIS before starting the demos. This is because I had installed .NET Beta 2, but the sample applications only works with .NET Framework 1.1. You can access and download these sample application at http://support.softartisans.com/support-216.aspx. You can also access a live demo of sample applications at http://windemo.softartisans.com/OfficeWriter/3.0.5/.
The vendor has also provided a separate section for FAQs on their website. You can download a five minute minute video regarding the usage of OfficeWriter, and also access the pricing and licensing information from the website of the vendor. I would suggest you refer to these materials for additional information about the product. Once you have purchased and downloaded the product, you can receive updates by logging into their website. I would strongly suggest you regularly check out their website for product updates. I hope the vendor will release OfficeWriter for .NET 2.0 soon.
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