Rendering Documents as PDF

The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating systems. Based on the PostScript language, each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, vector graphics, raster images and other information needed to display it.

This post demonstrates the usage of the GroupDocs.Viewer APIs (GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET and GroupDocs.Viewer for Java) to render the supported file formats as PDF documents.

How to Render Using GroupDocs.Viewer

Both the viewer handlers (ViewerHtmlHandler,ViewerImageHandler) provide an overloaded method GetPdfFile() which accepts the document name as parameter and returns FileContainer. The File stream can be fetched from the Stream property of the FileContainer in order to save the resultant document on the disk.

The following code snippet shows the way to render a word document as PDF:

Java lovers can write the code like following:

Add Print Action while Rendering as PDF

A Print Action is an option to appear the print popup when open the PDF document in Adobe reader. The popup will appear like below screenshot:

The below given steps can be followed, in order to add print action in the resultant PDF document.

  • Create/initialize PdfFileOptions object
  • Set Transformations property of PdfFileOptions to Transformation.AddPrintAction
  • Call htmlHandler.GetPdfFile method

The .NET code snippet will look like:

The Java code can be written as:

The complete ready to run code sample is available on GitHub.

  • The .NET guys can visit here
  • The code sample for Java lovers is available here

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GroupDocs Pricing Review 2019

Posted on May 15, 2019 by JohnOwens

In this post, we share how we conducted our 2019 GroupDocs Pricing Review.

Last month we shared the news about GroupDocs 2019 pricing change. Our aim behind that change was simple: to make sure we are delivering the best value Document Management API suite on the market.

Each year we review our pricing and licensing model to make sure we’re continually giving developers the functionality and flexibility they need. Providing top quality APIs at fair prices along with permissive licensing models.

How we conducted the review

For this review we gathered a list Vendors in the “.NET Document Viewer” space, ensured they had approximately comparable functionality to GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET and Java and measured the value that developers can get from each API vendor on our list.

Many vendors offer only a small subset of the vast feature-set offered inside GroupDocs.Total. So when performing our review we couldn’t measure a true “like-for-like” comparison. As such, for this review we focused on a single product and looked at 9 other vendors that offered a .NET document viewer.

Pricing Comparison

Purely from a pricing perspective, comparing GroupDocs’ Developer OEM license type at $2997 USD, we found that GroupDocs was the 3rd lowest priced solution on the market.


Vendor Cost for Equivalent OEM style license ($ USD)
Vendor A– $35940
Vendor B– $7400
Vendor C–$5499
Vendor D–$5000
Vendor E–$4995
Vendor F–$4719
Vendor G–$2999
GroupDocs–$2997
Vendor H *–$1995
Vendor I **–$1499

* This vendors Viewer only supports viewing PDF files
** This vendors Viewer is only supported on Silverlight and WPF

As well as being the most competitively priced API, our pricing starts at only $999, so the review doesn’t take our introductory, Developer Small Business license into account.

What Does A GroupDocs License Get You?

From a licensing perspective, our Developer OEM license offers:

  • Category leading functionality
  • 12 month subscription included – On average, products get updates each month, delivering bug fixes and new features.
  • Free Support – Dedicated support teams, also available during free trials. Paid Support options are available.
  • Deployment to unlimited servers – No per server licensing.
  • No extra cost for deployment to staging, build or backup servers.
  • Simple to understand, per developer licensing
  • Ability to upgrade single product purchases to GroupDocs.Total.

Conclusion

GroupDocs offers incredible value for money, market leading functionality, great licensing terms, free support and future proofing through free monthly updates.

If you’re looking into Document Manipulation API’s and you’re not evaluating GroupDocs, get in touch with our Sales Team or Support Team and we’ll be happy to discuss your needs.

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GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET now supports 95+ file formats!

Usually, when we have to shop for groceries, we choose the supermarket where we can get almost every item that we need. This way we don’t have to visit multiple stores for different types of products. Similarly, being specific to the software products, the developers prefer the component that provides a wide range of features regarding their use case so that they don’t have to use multiple solutions.

Let’s be more specific and talk about the online document viewers that are becoming more popular in modern days because of their ability to display the files within the applications without any need of dedicated software programs. Most of the time, the developers want to use an all-in-one document viewer component that can display a wide range of file formats. Thus, they can avoid using multiple components to provide support for multiple file formats.

What if I tell you that it’s now possible to have a document viewer that supports 95+ file formats?

Yes, you read it absolutely correct. In the latest release of GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET, we have added the support of 4 new file formats that are listed below.

  • Device Independent Bitmap (.dib)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint Template (.pot)
  • Electronic Business Card (.vcard)
  • Bzip2 Compressed File (.bz2)

With this addition, the API now supports 95+ file formats and we have the eye on completing our century soon.

So, let’s not wait and use this powerful API for integrating an all-in-one document viewer component in your application. For more news and updates, stay tuned to our blog and keep posting to our forum.

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Implement Link Annotation in PDF Documents

You might be wondering if there would be more annotation types. The wait is over, we’ve introduced Link Annotation in GroupDocs.Annotation for .NET 19.4. With the passage of time we’ll introduce more annotations. Currently, Link Annotation is supported for PDF, Slides and Word documents only. Let’s see the minimal set of fields required for Link Annotation.

There is one improvement and few bug fixes introduced as well. Previously,
GetPdfFile method was not processing password protected documents. Now, if you need to process password protected documents you should pass an extra parameter for GetPdfFile method.

Following are the major bug fixes:

  • Annotations were not removing from Cell documents
  • Password protected documents were not converted to PDF
  • GetPdfFile method was returning broken file
  • ImportAnnotations method was not closing source stream for Tiff files

Download and implement various types of annotations programatically in documents. See documentation of link and various other annotation types in developer guide section.

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AutoCAD to Image Conversion Issue is Fixed

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Atir Tahir

Here we are with another release of GroupDocs.Conversion for .NET 19.4. We’ve implemented automatic naming when saving a converted document to file. Do you want to convert a CMX (Corel Metafile eXchange) file to PDF or any other supported file format? Then you must try out this release.

We also improved the process of getting page orientation for a specific page

Obsolete Methods

  • CellsLoadOptions is marked as obsolete and is replaced by SpreadsheetLoadOptions
  • CellsSaveOptions is replaced by SpreadsheetSaveOptions
  • HtmlSaveOptions is replaced by MarkupSaveOptions

See more details here.

Bug Fixes

In this release, we fixed some major bugs. Let’s have a overview.

  • You might be facing issue in opening resultant/converted HTML file in Microsoft Edge? However, this issue is now fixed
  • There was another issue with ODP output file. Arrows in the file star pointing in wrong direction. This bug is fixed
  • Diagrams to image conversion issue is fixed

Have a glance at API documentation here.

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Render Files Contained in ZIP Archive using GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET 19.4

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Usman Aziz

Hello everyone! We are back with another exciting release announcement. In this post, I am going to give you an overview of what’s new as well as what’s improved and fixed in the latest release of GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET. In this release, we majorly focused on providing bug fixes and improvements. Along with this, we have introduced the support of CDR file format and the feature of rendering files contained in the ZIP archives. For details, you may also have look at the release notes.

First, let’s have a walk through the new features that we introduced in the latest release.

Support of CDR File Format

We have added the support of CDR file format that is a vector graphics file to store the images and it is used by CorelDRAW software.

Getting and Rendering Files from ZIP Archives

In the previous blog, we demonstrated how you can get the list of files, folders and the subfolders enclosed in a ZIP archive. Now, its time to go one step ahead and render the files contained in the ZIP archives. With the latest release, you can get the files located in the root as well as in a folder of the archive. The following code snippet shows how we can get and then render the files as attachments from an archive.

Isn’t it easier than you expected before reading this blog? Let’s not stop here and move forward to what has been fixed and improved in the latest release.

Important Bug Fixes and Improvements

In addition to the new features we have discussed above, we fixed a number of issues that were found in the previous releases as well as introduced a couple of improvements. The list includes:

  • Exception: Value does not fall within the expected range
  • Some characters are missing when rendering PDF as Html
  • Invalid Printable HTML  for MS Project documents with several pages
  • Missing characters when rendering PDF document as HTML
  • License is not applied in Unit Test project
  • ArchiveDocumentInfoContainer.Folders doesn’t return the list of folders
  • Values in the form fields are missing when rendering PDF into HTML
  • First page of ODT documents is not rendering
  • Metered related exception when License is initialized with other GroupDocs products
  • Extended support for ViewerConfig.FontDirectories setting to vector image formats
  • Improved rending attachments from password protected zip archives

Now, it’s time to enhance and upgrade your application with the features offered by the latest release of GroupDocs.Viewer for .NET. You may also evaluate the API features by downloading or cloning the complete examples project from GitHub repository.

As always, we would love to hear your suggestions at our forum. Cheers!

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GroupDocs May 2019 Pricing Update

At GroupDocs, we’re always on the lookout for new ways to deliver the best possible value to our customers.

We rarely increase our pricing and pride ourselves on our fair licensing policies, cutting edge Metered subscription models and flexible installment payment plans.

Today we’re announcing two further changes that our customers can take advantage of from the 1st of May 2019:

GroupDocs Pricing Update

We’ve updated GroupDocs pricing to deliver the best value Document Manipulation API suite on the market. Use GroupDocs APIs to build awesome experiences for your users.

From the 1st of May 2019, All individual GroupDocs APIs will be priced from only $999 and GroupDocs.Total will start from just $2999.

Get started today – download a trial from GroupDocs.com

Introducing Conholdate.Total

Introducing Conholdate.Total – Every GroupDocs & Aspose API in one ultimate API bundle.

We’re also extending this pricing update to our Conholdate.Total bundle.

Get ALL GroupDocs & Aspose APIs in our Conholdate.Total suite for a single, incredible price.

Conholdate.Total starts at only $3999, so, for only $1000 over the price of a GroupDocs.Total or Aspose.Total Developer Small Business license you can get EVERY GroupDocs and Aspose API AND free upgrades for a year.

Get started by visiting Conholdate.com

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Generate Image Preview of the Documents

Image previews are now commonly used to present your file/document to the users. It is quite useful when you want the users to quickly have a look at your document without downloading or opening it. As an example, MS Windows has this ability to provide the preview of the files in the preview pane of File Explorer without opening the document in the dedicated software program.

Did you ever desire to have the ability to generate image previews in your application? If yes then it is the time to embed this feature in your application with a few lines of code using GroupDocs.Metadata.

So, let’s have a look at how to generate image previews for the documents.

We have introduced PreviewHandler class in the GroupDocs.Metadata for .NET and Java to get the document pages in the form of images. Using PreviewHandler you can access and select the document page(s), either a single page or all pages, that you want to render as image. Below are the code snippets that generate the images of the pages in a Word document.

C#

Java

At the moment, we have launched this feature for the following documents:

  • PDF documents
  • Presentations
  • Spreadsheets
  • Word processing documents
  • Vision diagrams
  • OneNote documents
  • Images

Let’s not wait and try out this amazing feature by downloading the latest version of GroupDocs.Metadata for .NET and Java. You can explore and evaluate the API features by cloning/downloading the examples from the GitHub repository.

In case you would have any questions or suggestions, we would love to have a conversation with you on our forum.

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Upcoming Release of GroupDocs.Redaction for Java

Big News! We are going to launch GroupDocs.Redaction API for Java platform very soon. Similar to the .NET version, GroupDocs.Redaction for Java would be a backend API for removing sensitive and classified information from the popular document formats. As far as the supported features are concerned, this is going to be a replica of GroupDocs.Redaction for .NET. Through this API, we aim to provide you a single, format-independent interface containing a set of redaction methods to redact text, metadata, and annotations.

Let’s have a look at the salient features that you are going to get in the first version of GroupDocs.Redaction for Java.

  • Exact Phrase Text Redaction
  • Case-Sensitive Exact Phrase Text Redaction
  • Text Redaction with Colored Rectangle
  • Text Redaction using Regular Expression
  • Support of region redactions for image files
  • Metadata Redaction
  • Searching and Filtering Metadata for Redaction
  • Annotation Redaction
  • Removal of Sensitive Information from Annotation
  • Document Format Detection
  • Detailed Redaction Logging
  • Saving File in Original Format
  • Saving File as a Rasterized PDF
  • Ability to specify a set of redaction rules (policy) in an XML file

You are going to get the above-mentioned features for the following document formats:

  • PDF (.pdf)
  • MS Word (.doc, .docx, .dot, .odt, .dotx, .docm, .dotm, .rtf)
  • MS Excel (.xls, .xlsx, .xlt, .xltx, .xlsm, .xltm, .csv)
  • MS PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx, .potx, .pptm, .ppsm, .potm)
  • Images (.jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, .png, .gif, .tiff, .tif)

Now, you might be interested in when you would get the first version of GroupDocs.Redaction for Java. Well, we won’t let you wait for enough because:

“Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing.”

Dean Koontz

At the moment, we are finalizing the first release of GroupDocs.Redaction for Java and hoping that you will be able to grab it very soon. Please stay tuned to our blog for more news and updates.

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Implement Page Rotation when Converting to PDF

Its time to augment your document conversion experience. You will be pleased to hear the new features, improvements and bug fixes that we’r going to elaborate in this blog post. Did you ever think of converting and rotating a document at the same time? We make your wish come true with this month’s release of GroupDocs.Conversion for Java 19.4.
You can now set page rotation angle when converting to a PDF or Image format. And it only takes a single line of code.

We implemented following new properties:

  • setRotate(PdfSaveOptions.Rotation.On90)
  • setRotateAngle(45)

Rotation Feature when Converting to Image Format

We enriched ImageSaveOptions class with a new property that takes rotation angle value as parameter.

Rotation when Converting to PDF

PdfSaveOptions class covers a new property that takes PdfSaveOptions.Rotation enumeration.

More File Formats and Font Substitution Options

Some new document formats are also introduced. Like you can do conversion from EPS, TSV, PCL. API also permits to set default font and font substitution option when converting from .one file.

Measure Conversion Time

Can we measure or track time for a document conversion? You might be thinking of such a feature. Because its appealing. Therefore, we’ve introduced this in current release. Let’s have a look at its implementation.

Include Hidden Slides in Converted Document

Yes, this is absolutely right. We’ve implemented a property setShowHiddenSlides using that you can decide either to convert or skip hidden slides when converting a Slide document.

Improvements

We always introduce improvements for better usability. This release covers following improvements.

  • HideWordTrackedChanges option to WordsLoadOptions class
  • HidePdfAnnotations option to PdfLoadOptions class
  • HideComments option to CellsLoadOptions, SlidesLoadOptions and WordsLoadOptions class

Bug Fixes

We listen your feedback carefully and make sure to fix the disruptions that you face. Spreadsheets are one of the best way to represent data. Most of the time you add graphs in it. Previously, API was not converting spreadsheets with graphs properly. It was not showing complete data. However, this issue is now fixed.

Width and Height not Working

Furthermore, there was no impact of width and height in the output that you set in ImageSaveOptions. This issue is also now resolved.

Will we get PasswordProtectedException?

Yes, we fixed obfuscation config for com.groupdocs.conversion.exceptions package. You will now get proper exception on processing a password protected document without applying password. Eventually, this exception could be then handled.

To learn more about API integration and usage check out the docs here. To see the implementation and functionalities, check out the GitHub repository.

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