 Product Review:
SoftArtisans OfficeWriter 3.0 Enterprise Edition
by Anand Narayanaswamy
Published 08/22/2005
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Article on devCity.NET
SoftArtisans OfficeWriter 3.0 Enterprise Edition Explored
Developers are always on a look out for products which enable
then to create new and interesting .NET applications and clients
are keenly looking forward for 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 and 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.
You will have to register on the vendor’s website in
order to download the product. You will then receive an e-mail
containing the necessary instructions for downloading the product.
This e-mail will contain a product key which you have to use
while installing the product. The installation file is around
19 MB and the download time will depend upon the speed of your
internet connectivity. Normally, it takes 15-30 minutes to
download and an additional 5 minutes to install the product.
The installation wizard will prompt you to choose the products
which have to be installed (WordWriter, ExcelWriter or Reporting
Services). Once you installed 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 API’s which are not found
in 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
few lines of code. The documents generated by OfficeWriter
are in respective native formats and they preserve all the
features of the original product. It can be viewed by thousands
of concurrent users without comprising performance. Moreover,
you need not have to worry about licensing issues as 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
using 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 can be viewed using a standard web browser. Version
3 of WordWriter comes with lot of features such as ability
to add paragraphs, creation of bulleted and numbered list,
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, 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 facilitates 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 OfficeWriter renderer works perfectly
fine with the designer. The main job of the renderer is to
interpret the information contained on 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 have to spend time for learning development tools
such as Visual Studio .NET and also can avoid huge licensing
cost involved with these tools. Moreover, OfficeWriter generates
real RDL files which allow you to take full advantage of Reporting
Services report management and security. 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; 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 the working of the product. 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 also found that the documentation is very elaborate and contains
all the required information in a crisp format. The manual
also includes a comprehensive reference section for Reporting
Services integration. When I clicked the menu Reference | Microsoft
RDL files on the documentation it opened a section about 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 about how easy it is to generate
a Word document using ASP.NET.
You can use either plain text editor such as NotePad or Visual
Studio .NET. If you decide to work with NotePad then you should
place the two DLL files (SAWW3NET.dll & SAXW6NET.dll) inside
bin folder on the working directory. If you work with Visual
Studio .NET then you should add reference 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
The final output will be as shown in figure 2:
You can also generate the document using the appropriate templates.
The vendor has provided a detailed step-by-step guide at http://docs.softartisans.com/OfficeWriterWindows/3.0.5/WordWriter/quickstart/WordTemplate.aspx.
Unfortunately, the vendor doesn’t provide the documentation
for the product in HTML Help format along with the installation
setup. I hope the vendor will provide the same soon so that
users can access the documentation offline without going through
online each and every time. However, providing documentation
online will surely help the users to get up-to-date information
about the product easily. The vendor also provided a detailed
online documentation for the product on their support website.
They have also provided separate manual for the product to
work with Java platform. You can also 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 the installation of the
product. I had to make a minor version modification on the
IIS before getting started with 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 FAQ’s on
their website. You can download a short 5 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 to refer to these materials for getting additional information
about the product. Once you have purchased and downloaded the
product then you can get updates by logging into their website.
I would strongly suggest you to regularly check out their website
for product updates. I hope the vendor will release OfficeWriter
for .NET 2.0 soon.
About The Author
Anand Narayanaswamy (Microsoft MVP) works as an independent
consultant and runs NetAns
Technologies, which provides affordable, reliable and secured
web hosting and consulting services. He also runs an exclusive
web hosting service under the banner webhostinghotel.com,
which provides web hosting solutions for developers. Anand
also runs LearnXpress.com, Dotnetalbum.com and Csharpfaq.com. LearnXpress.com is
a featured site at the MSDN's Visual C# .NET communities section.
He regularly contributes articles and reviews for various websites.
Anand specializes in ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic .NET, ASP, Visual
Basic 6.0 and in the development of courseware, technical articles
and software documentation. He is based in Trivandrum, Kerala
State (God's Own Country), India. His "I Type What I Feel" blog
can be browsed at http://www.msmvps.com/anandn.
You can reach him at ananddotnet@yahoo.co.in. | 
