Three Open-Source .NET APIs for Word Processing Documents

To automate the manipulation of documents within our applications we need some reliable APIs. The market offers both Open Source Software (OSS) and Closed Source Softwares (CSS) to work with Word Processing Documents. Closed source APIs are often costly. There are a bunch of free APIs available with both basic and advanced features, following are a few of them: Open XML SDKNPOIDocX Getting Started with Free APIs Let’s get started with the installation and basic usage of APIs. Open …

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Create a Word Document using PHPWord

PHPWord is a powerful open-source API, written in PHP to create and read file-formats including DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, HTML, and PDF. Using the API you can create a document, set document properties, insert images, insert charts and more. Let’s get started with creating a simple DOCX file using PHPWord. Pre-Requisites To create a word document using the PHPWord you need the following resources installed in your operating system: PHP version 5.3.3+ComposerXML Parser Extension ( This extension is enabled …

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Posted in File Formats, Word Processing |

Getting Started with Apache POI – Java API for Documents

Ofttimes, we need to automate our processes and manipulate the documents programmatically. We need to create documents in bulk, read, process, and save the resultant documents. We need to work with a bunch of different file formats simultaneously. Luckily, for Java developers, we have an open-source API to work with Word, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Email, and Diagram file-formats – Apache POI. This cross-platform API is designed to work with Java Virtual Machine (JVM) based languages. How to Install Installing Apache …

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Difference Between XLS and XLSX

XLS and XLSX extensions represent popular Excel file formats that were introduced by Microsoft as part of its Office suite over a period of time. XLS being the oldest and widely used file type is also known to be the Excel97-2003 file format. The XLSX file format was introduced as a replacement of XLS file type with the launch of Excel 2007. Common users may not know the underlying differences between the two file formats, however, XLS is different …

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Posted in Spreadsheet |

Excel File Formats: XLSX, XLSM, XLS, XLTX, XLTM

A file with XLSX, XLSM, XLS, XLTX or XLTM extension is a Microsoft Excel file that uses specific standard file format. You can show or display file extension on Windows OS from Folder Options. MS Excel lets you save files in any of these file formats using the Save As option. These Excel file formats serve different purposes for working with Spreadsheet files as explained in this article. In addition to standard file formats, Excel indirectly uses other file …

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Markup Language File Formats – A Survey

A markup language is a computer language that separates the elements of a document by tags. Unlike programming languages, it is in human-readable format and can be opened with almost all text editors. For its nature of defining elements by tags, such a file allows definition of wide range of elements. These tags doesn’t have anything to do with the graphical representation of the data, nor they are used to specify user defined settings such as fonts, dimensions, etc. …

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Posted in Web |

EPUB vs PDF: E-Publishing File Formats

With the increase in usage of smart devices, digital documents are replacing printed copies of the same. The ease of reading the content on your smart phone or tablet gives you freedom from carrying the hard copies of content everywhere. Several digital file reading formats are available for use, with eBooks taking an important role. PDF and EPub are two most popular eBook file formats that are widely used for reading digital content. In this article, we’ll try to …

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Posted in EBook, PDF |

Doc to Docx – A change worth considering to switch!

Working with latest Microsoft Word version, the default file format for saving the document is DOCX. As time moves on, the upcoming generations, working in technology domain, won’t even know how the DOCX format replaced the DOC file format which was the default format for Word 2003 and before. By moving from Doc to Docx, Microsoft fulfilled its promise of open file format standards that was long demanded by companies providing support for word documents. DOC vs DOCX Those who don’t …

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Posted in Word Processing |

Survey: Image File Formats for Web

The importance of images can easily be estimated by the famous quote that says “An image is worth a thousand words”. The presence of images on a webpage plays an important role in attracting the visitors by giving an idea about the contents of the page.  It won’t be wrong to say that contents of a page goes hand in glove with images to give a clear idea of what it is all about and that is why several …

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Posted in Image |

PDF File Formats at FileFormat.com

FacebookTwitterLinkedinPortable Document Format (PDF) is widely used page layout file format that is gaining popularity day by day. Introduced in early 1990s by Adobe, it completely stores a document in one file. PDF file format was initially used for desktop publishing of documents such as posters, flyers, and other similar types of files for physical printing. With the passage of time, Adobe not only introduced free PDF Reader, but enhanced the format to be light weight and compatible to become …

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