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Browser-based document editing with TX Text Control ActiveX Server

This ASP.NET demonstration application illustrates how to load (amongst other file formats) Microsoft Word documents into a browser-based editor without any plug-ins - all that is required are HTML and Javascript. In other words: You can load, edit and save Microsoft Word documents in the browser.

Typical browsers that fulfill these requirements are Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.

While there are Java- or ActiveX-based solutions, it is often desirable, that no plug-ins are required to modify content stored on a server in the browser.

Load and save MS Word, RTF or HTML

This demonstration application takes full advantage of TX Text Control's wide range of file formats and thus - in addition to HTML - supports RTF, DOC, XML, TXT and PDF.

The demonstration application that you can execute and download below is written in VB.NET and illustrates how to use such an editor interface to load, modify and save documents in the file formats mentioned above.

Additionally, the content in the client editor can be exported to a secure and password protected Adobe PDF.

The communication between the client editor and TX Text Control ActiveX Server is based on HTML. Therefore, the formatting of the text in the client editor is restricted to the formatting supported by HTML.

No Microsoft Word; No Adobe Acrobat

All this can be achieved without having Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat installed on the server. Only TX Text Control ActiveX Server is required to convert or create all supported document formats.

We use HTML as the interface between the browser-based editor and the server-side component. TX Text Control ActiveX Server loads, for example, a DOC file and sends it as HTML to the browser-based word processing editor.

The user is then able to view and modify the content.

On saving the document, the user can choose a new file format and save the changes back to the server. The content is sent through an HTTP POST variable, loaded by TX Text Control ActiveX Server and converted to the selected file format.

This process is illustrated in figure 3 below (right).

Figure 3: How TX Text Control ActiveX Server
is used to convert documents.

Figure 1: Generate Microsoft Word documents.


Figure 2: Generate PDF documents.

Download The Code

The demonstration application can be downloaded below, complete with sample source code. This sample runs in Firefox version 1.0 or better and Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or better. The source code may be used for any purpose: We encourage you to modify it to fit your own requirements. You can test the application on our server. To install the sample your own server, you have to install a TX Text Control ActiveX Server trial version which can be ordered here.

• Launch demonstration
• Download project files  [30.5 KB, ZIP]

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