OfficeWriter Solves
Excel & Word Performance Issues
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OfficeWriter offers some very important advantages over
the Excel and Word objects when used in a traditional
client/server application or on a Web server to generate
and stream true native Excel reports and Word documents.
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Microsoft has stated that running Office applications from
a server-side environment is risky and unsupported. According
to Microsoft, Office applications, such as Excel and Word,
were never intended for use server-side, and therefore do not
take into consideration the security problems that are faced
by distributed components.
Excel and Word on the Web Server
OfficeWriter has no dependency on the Excel and Word objects
when creating native Excel and Word files. This means that
it is not necessary to have Excel or Word installed on the
server at all. This is a major benefit due to lower licensing
costs and ease of deployment as well as for the performance
and stability of the server when handling large volumes of
concurrent requests for Excel reports and/or Word documents.
Performance
| Problem |
Solution |
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Microsoft Excel and Word on a Server: With as
few as 2-3 concurrent users, your server will incur noticeable
performance degradation and could crash. See
Microsoft Knowledge Base Q257757
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SoftArtisans OfficeWriter: Safely generates thousands
of Excel workbooks and Word documents for an unlimited
number of concurrent users each day.
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Resource Usage
| Problem |
Solution |
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Microsoft Excel and Word on a Server: The Excel
and Word objects do not always go away. For example,
the excel.exe remains in the list of processes and must
be manually killed. Excel does this because it terminates
when the calling thread exits, not when there are no
more object references. In the case of ASP, the calling
thread typically does not die. See
Microsoft Knowledge Base Q257757
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SoftArtisans OfficeWriter: Works without dependency
on the Microsoft Excel and Word objects, which are not
required on the server. This avoids the performance penalties
and instability otherwise associated with instantiating
multiple copies of the Excel and Word objects on a Web
server.
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OfficeWriter is group of multi-threaded server-side DLLs that
provide a greater measure of server stability when handling
multiple concurrent requests. Instantiating multiple copies
(as few as 2-3 concurrent users) of the Excel and Word objects
can be dangerous, as the objects do not always close out when
they are no longer in use. The excel.exe and winword.exe will
remain in the list of processes and must be manually killed.
This can place a heavy load on the server that could eventually
result in a server crash.
According to Microsoft, by using an Office Application from
a server-side solution you are taking risks with the stability
of your overall solution. In addition, by using Office as a
service component on a network server you may reduce the stability
of that machine, and as a consequence, your network as a whole.
See Microsoft Knowledge Base article, "Considerations
for Server-Side Automation of Office (Q257757)".
The OfficeWriter DLLs can be set to nothing in the ASP code.
This kills the current process and releases all resources.
Return to OfficeWriter Versus
Office on the Server. | 
